KuCoin AMA With Kava (KAVA) - Powering the Cosmos DeFi Ecosystem Through Native USDT Liquidity

Dear KuCoin Users,

Time: September 21, 2023, 12:00 PM - 1:00 AM (UTC)

KuCoin hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session with the Kava Product team member, Karmel Elshinawi, in the KuCoin Exchange Group.

Official Website: http://www.kava.io

Follow Kava on Twitter and Telegram.

Q: Please tell us about yourself and your team. How did you get involved with KAVA?

Karmel: My name is Karmel Elshinnawi, and I'm on the Kava product team. My experience in blockchain started in 2018. With so many projects and initiatives, Kava stood out as a leading blockchain company that knew the importance of interoperability. The team is great, and we are so lucky to be working on an innovative initiative that Kava is doing.

Q: Please give us a brief description of what KAVA is. What problem did you see that kickstarted the creation of KAVA?

Karmel: Kava is a decentralized blockchain that combines the speed and interoperability of Cosmos with the developer power of Ethereum. Kava aims to be the central point between Ethereum & Cosmos Ecosystems and a liquidity hub for native tokens like USDT. Kava Ecosystem offers a combination of native protocols built by Kava Labs (Mint, Lend, Swap) and a diverse group of partner teams (Kinetix, Equilibre, Mare Finance) as well as established apps (Curve, Abracadabra, Beefy) deploying on Kava Chain. Besides offering users a diverse suite of blue-chip and innovative new DeFi protocols, we're also working to unlock native coin liquidity to the Cosmos (long-standing) and native Cosmos assets to Ethereum (ATOM on Kava EVM, for example).

Q: Kava has recently made waves in the crypto markets by integrating Fireblocks. Please tell us more about that.

Karmel: Kava Chain has been steadily expanding, but its accessibility to top-tier crypto institutions was limited due to the absence of a robust connection to a multi-party computation (MPC) custody technology provider.

The Fireblocks integration now opens the door for over 1,800 leading digital asset and crypto institutions to custody KAVA tokens and access Kava-native assets, including Cosmos-native USDt, which Tether has chosen to issue exclusively on Kava Chain.

This integration provides institutional investors with improved access to Kava. It enables Fireblocks customers to engage in various DeFi opportunities within the Kava ecosystem, including platforms like Curve, Kinetix, and Hover.

Q: Your motto is "connecting Cosmos and Ethereum." Please give us an example of how Kava connects Cosmos and Ethereum.

Karmel: Of course! A great example of this is the recently released Kava internal bridge.

The Kava 14 upgrade brought the 'internal bridge,' designed to provide secure interoperability between the Cosmos and Ethereum ecosystems. Kava 14's internal bridge introduces the possibility of bringing any Cosmos asset into the EVM ecosystem. This provides increased flexibility in converting Cosmos tokens to ERC20 tokens. Additionally, with USDt now available natively on Kava's EVM, there's potential for all Cosmos chains to gain access to native USDt.

Kava 14 significantly enhances the user experience. The simplified workflow allows Cosmo native tokens, like ATOM, to be converted to the ERC20 token standard Ethereum uses without advanced technical knowledge. Not only that, Kava 14 allows Cosmos users to interact directly with sophisticated Ethereum ecosystem dApps like Curve, unlocking greater flexibility and more opportunity.

Additionally, when connecting Cosmos and Ethereum, native USDT is vital.

Q: Yes, USDT coming to Kava was very exciting news. Could you tell us more about it and explain what relevance native USDT will have for Kava and the Cosmos ecosystem?

Karmel: In June 2023, Tether chose Kava as its gateway to the Cosmos ecosystem. Kava is excited and honored by Tether's decision to bring the world's most liquid, secure, and transparent stablecoin USDt to Cosmos appchains and Kava EVM dApps. We strongly believe that Tether's decision to integrate USDt natively on Cosmos, using Kava as a hub, will bring accessibility and financial stability to users and developers within the Cosmos ecosystem. Natively issued USDt on Kava simplifies the process and offers a streamlined, efficient mechanism for stablecoin liquidity provision and transfer between the Cosmos and Ethereum ecosystems.

As a result, this integration could catalyze a significant expansion of the DeFi economy on Cosmos, providing a compelling solution to the liquidity problem that has been challenging since the collapse of Terra's UST in Q1 2022. Deploying Tether, a stablecoin with a strong market reputation and ~65% dominance, will also offer increased security and reliability to users and developers alike.

Q: The recent deployment of Stargate is also crucial for this.

Karmel: Absolutely! Stargate is the leading omnichain liquidity layer and native asset bridge with over $18 billion in lifetime transaction volume. This integration will expand the reach of Tether's Cosmos-native USDt issued exclusively on the Kava Chain to the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond.

Stargate's success in connecting Ethereum networks is unmatched, with 300x more TVL than the next most-used bridge. Deploying Stargate on the Kava Chain gives DeFi users the most secure and efficient way to move USDt between the Cosmos and Ethereum ecosystems.

The integration ensures that users from any of Stargate's chains have access to USDt on the Kava Chain and every app chain on Cosmos's Internet of Blockchains. Ease-of-use features like single-click transfers and swaps, combined with unified liquidity and instant guaranteed finality, make traversing USDt capital efficient and straightforward. Stargate's native asset transaction capabilities ensure a more direct and efficient connection to the Cosmos ecosystem.

Q: What does KAVA have planned for the future?

Karmel: Kava is using this bear market period to build. We are currently in a growth stage, onboarding new state-of-the-art Defi Protocols while we expand native USDT liquidity to Cosmos. Our teams are working with Tier-1 Cosmos projects such as Osmosis, Objective, Chromosomal, Sei, Akash, and others… With this combined effort, we are trying to bring USDT to Kava EVM through new native protocols. Kinetix, Mare, Equilibre, Beefy, Abracadabra, Stargate. At the same time, we are working with CEXs to boost USDT liquidity in the ecosystem.

As you can see, we are preparing for the next bull run to offer the new wave of users a streamlined suite of high-quality, secure, and easy-to-use Defi products that will give them access to all the exciting opportunities DeFi offers.

Kava is doing its part in contributing to mass adoption by working to become the gateway to Cosmos and Ethereum Defi.

Q: How does Kava integrate with other platforms and protocols through application-specific blockchains hosted on Cosmos, and what benefits does this offer users?

Karmel: Given we are the gateway of getting USDT onto the Cosmos side, we have been working with Cosmos chains to make USDt available for all their users. One of the ways is through IBC transfer. 2. We have also taken ATOM from the cosmos side and made it available to EVM projects built on Kava.

Q: What are the key unique features of the Kava chain that would make users choose it over other chains in the space?

Karmel: Besides offering users a diverse suite of blue-chip and innovative new DeFi protocols, we're also working to unlock native coin liquidity to the Cosmos (long-standing) and native Cosmos assets to Ethereum (ATOM on Kava EVM, for example).

Q: The biggest problems in the crypto ecosystem are scalability, transparency, and exorbitant gas fees. How does the KAVA aim to address and solve these three problems?

Karmel: The Ethereum and Cosmos Co-Chains interoperate seamlessly, empowering developers to build in whichever environment they want without sacrificing access to the users and assets of the other. The Kava Network's unique architecture enables the free flow of users, assets, and projects between Kava and the industry's most relevant ecosystems at scale, all powered by the lightning-fast Tendermint Core consensus engine. The top 100 nodes validate blocks by a weighted bonded stake in KAVA tokens. Economic incentives for validators come in the form of earning KAVA as block rewards and a portion of the network's transaction fees. Validators risk losing KAVA via strict slashing conditions such as failing to ensure high uptime and double signing transactions.

Q: What have you achieved in the market? What is the next development plan and layout?

Karmel: We're excited to get USDt across the Cosmos side. Continue to work with the best protocols to build amazing products for users. This includes expanding our presence on the Ethereum side.

Q: Can you talk more about the new technology that combines the benefits and interactive functions of Cosmos with the DeFi applications you have built? What is the crucial thing that would increase the adoption of Kava and possibly the rest of crypto?

Karmel: Sure. The Kava Network is the first Layer-1 blockchain to combine the speed and scalability of the Cosmos SDK with the developer support of Ethereum. Through its unique co-chain architecture, the Kava Network will empower developers to build for Web3 and next-gen blockchain technologies. KAVA is the native governance and staking token of the Kava Network, enabling its decentralization and security. It enables Seamless interoperability, Optimized scalability, and Rapid ecosystem growth.

🎁 Participate in the Kava AMA quiz now for a chance to win 15.75 KAVA!

The form will remain open for five days from publishing this AMA recap.

KuCoin and Kava have prepared a total of 3,150 KAVA to give away to AMA participants.

1. Pre-AMA activity: 1,575 KAVA

2. Free-ask section: 78.75 KAVA

3. Flash mini-game: 630 KAVA

4. Post-AMA quiz: 866.25 KAVA

. . .

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