Kin was launched by the developers of the instant messaging app KIK last year. It held a wildly successful ICO back in December 2017, giving out an ERC20 token that was based on the Ethereum blockchain. However, since then Kin’s daily usage has become so large that the Ethereum network is no longer the ideal home for the project. Instead, Kin is working on its own custom fork of the Stellar blockchain.
Ethereum is Becoming Outdated
According to Ted Livingston – KIK Messenger’s CEO – the Ethereum network is similar to the “dial-up era of blockchain”, after lambasting it as unreliable. This sentiment is shared by many developers in the crypto community, as they seek to move away from the Ethereum network.
A handful of decentralized apps (dApps) have been responsible in the past for hogging all of the network speed, pushing up the gas fees from a few cents to a few dollars. This has angered many developers and caused them to abandon the network all together.
Tough Times for Ethereum
The Ethereum Foundation has been going through some rough times lately. The network’s founder – Vitalik Buterin – has begun the process of walking away from Ethereum. The reason behind Buterin’s decision to quit his very own project is still not yet clear, but he claims to have been planning this move for quite some time.
In addition to Buterin’s potential departure, the long awaited Constantinople hard fork has caused some serious issues on the Ropsten testnet. The issues were so bad that the testnet had to be completely abandoned. These two events signal tough times ahead for the Ethereum developer community and could be a another contributing factor to the fact that Kin is leaving Ethereum too.
Scam Apps Galore
The Ethereum network has also come under fire for the sheer number of scam dApps running on the network. Recently MetaMask – a browser extension that gives users the ability to interact with Ethereum dApps – flagged 333ETH as a scam. The app promises users a guaranteed return on investment, and encourages users to get their friends to join up with the promise of rewards.
Gas Fees Go Through the Roof
In order for transactions to be processed on the Ethereum network, a “gas fee” must be paid. This is essentially a transaction fee, and while usually this is typically in the region of $0.07, a number of dApps have been accused of manipulating these gas prices. Scam apps have been known to flood the network with transactions, causing the fees to spike as high as $10. For Kin, this is just simply no good, as it makes its service financially unviable for its users.
This news from Kin outs another feather in Stellar’s cap and is another nod to the relatively young technology. A number of companies have chosen to partner with Stellar in the past few months, in part thanks to its superior transaction times and low-cost transaction fees. Transactions made on Kin’s modified Stellar blockchain will simply fly through and users will be happier as a result.
