The 3 Pillars of KAP (published whitepaper!)
Happy Monday, everyone! Today, Kui and I released the KAP whitepaper! I first shared the idea for KAP almost a year ago. We've been iterating on the design of this dApp for the last few months and I'm very excited to finish building it so I (and you) can start using it.
So, what is KAP? KAP stands for Koinos Account Protocol. Its goal is to be a fully decentralized protocol that offers the easiest way to onboard non-technical users to blockchain, give them tools to manage their account security easily, and grant free access to any dApp built on Koinos without needing to buy tokens first.
That was a mouthful, so let me break it down. In order for KAP to be the easiest way to onboard new users, we're focusing on 3 main pillars:
1. An NFT Name Service
This is nothing new in the world of blockchain. ENS has .eth names. Unstoppable domains offers .crypto and a variety of others. Lens Protocol offers .lens names for users of the social network. Every blockchain has some variation on this because there's demand for human readable account names. It's difficult to manage blockchain addresses, so having easily identifiable usernames makes blockchain more accessible.
KAP's name service is different because anyone can get free usernames or choose to pay for premium, shorter names.
2. Account Abstraction
Wallets are not easy to manage even for seasoned blockchain users. If you lose your private key, connect to a bad dApp, or otherwise mess up, your money is gone irreversibly. Account Abstraction is the idea that you can use smart contracts to make your life much easier. Maybe you want to be able to recover your funds if you lose your keys. Or perhaps you want to set up a "will" to transfer everything automatically to someone else if you're inactive for over a year. You can even set up completely empty accounts to try out new dApps without risking any of your assets.
Typically, you would need to code these smart contracts yourself or hire someone to do it for you, but KAP will allow you to manage simple account security features like these without writing a single line of code right from the KAP website.
3. Free Mana
"Free" is never free on other blockchains. You still have to pay gas fees even if they're tiny. This isn't expensive on certain chains, but it does mean you need to acquire tokens before using dApps. Koinos is built around the concept of mana: an automatically recharging resource that's used to pay for network usage. Mana is a property of KOIN, so you either need your own KOIN or know someone with KOIN who will let you use their mana.
KAP will use the KOIN earned through premium name sales to power free mana for all KAP accounts. That means you can get a free username and use any dApp without ever going through the hassle of buying tokens.
Sound interesting? You can get more details in the whitepaper.
-Luke
P.S. Reach out if you have any questions. We'll be hosting a livestream later this week to talk through the whitepaper and answer questions. Time will be announced soon.