Frequently Asked Questions

Proof of Work has been the longest-running blockchain system with Bitcoin’s introduction in 2009 and is the best example of blockchain’s potential. What made Bitcoin so revolutionary was its decentralized design, allowing anyone with specialized hardware (miners) to validate transactions on the blockchain and keep the system accurate and secure. As time progressed, Bitcoin’s security and decentralization snowballed as more miners came online, making the network much harder to hack and exploit. Not only would one need to consider the distribution of individual machines worldwide, but the cost of building these specialized miners with limited resources and electricity is immeasurable. While Bitcoin has established itself as a store of value, similar to gold, its layer-1 protocol has not been widely adopted due to its low transaction throughput, making it hard for the world to take advantage of Bitcoin’s benefits. Kadena takes the robust secure and decentralized qualities of Bitcoin and makes it even better. Kadena scales Bitcoin Proof of Work infinitely to accommodate transaction and usage demands and makes blockchain usable in day-to-day interactions, such as the exchange of money, data, assets, and more.

Kadena scales by providing a mechanism to asynchronously produce many blocks on different peer chains all at the same height, with each block requiring a fraction of the hash power of the total network. This configuration drastically increases the number of transactions per second over the total network. Unlike other platforms, Kadena is designed to power global financial systems. Our protocol continually scales to higher TPS (Transactions Per Second) as more chains are added to the network.

Although Proof of Stake networks have gained popularity over the years, Kadena still believes in the inherent security that only Bitcoin’s Proof of Work model can provide. Unlike Proof of Stake, Kadena’s Proof of Work model makes it much harder for malicious actors to join together to attack the network, whether that’s to change the ledger of the blockchain or take down the blockchain altogether. With Proof of Stake, all one would need is money and lots of it.

With Proof of Work, one would need to purchase specialized mining equipment that one would have to run multiple hours of electricity to attempt a 51% attack on the network. Furthermore, because specialized mining equipment is limited due to a lack of resources, materials, and manpower, getting the items to attack the network is a non-starter. Finally, because Kadena can scale Proof of Work, the network’s difficulty grows with the number of chains. In a traditional single-chain Proof of Work network, one would need to control 51% of the network’s hashrate/power. However, because Kadena has multiple chains, each acting as its own blockchain, malicious actors would need to first perform a 51% attack across the number of chains Kadena is at. So at 20 chains, one would need to perform a 51% attack across 11-12 chains.

While we offer marginal transaction fees for users (average of $0.0007), we’ve gone a step further in introducing the first crypto gas stations to allow businesses to eliminate all transaction fees for their users, removing a key barrier to mass adoption of dApps. Transaction fees increase due to the congestion of a chain, with this in mind, transactions can easily be done from another chain on Kadena.

Every chain (of the 20 braided chains) produces a new block 30 seconds on average. Which comes out to 20 blocks every 30 seconds, at a theoretical block time of 1.5 seconds.

While an infinite number of chains can sound complicated, Kadena’s engineering team has solved the scalability issue with Bitcoin’s Proof of Work simply through a unique field of mathematics called graph theory. Whereas traditional single-chain blockchain only needs to refer to the previous block for the network's history, Kadena’s multichain system refers to the block in its existing chain and the block on its neighboring chain. Although this might sound complicated, the process of scaling the network from 10 to 20 chains or 20 to 50 chains takes no more than changing one line of code.

Kadena’s Proof of Work model is secured similarly to Bitcoin’s Proof of Work, via distributed specialized hardware, called miners, anywhere around the world that has access to electricity and the internet. Because one needs to have specialized miners to contribute to the system, it makes it harder for just anyone to validate transactions.

Our founders' experience at JPMorgan revealed the potential for – and limitations of – existing blockchain solutions. Unlike traditional blockchains that operate on a single chain, Chainweb consists of multiple parallel chains, each capable of processing transactions independently. This multi-chain structure significantly increases the network's transaction throughput without compromising on security or decentralization​.

First conceptually built for the trading desk at JP Morgan, Pact is the first truly human-readable smart contract language. It lets anyone write clearly, directly, and safely onto a blockchain — a true advance for automated contracts. Pact automatically detects bugs and keeps the purpose of the code clear. With other contract languages, finding bugs and making sense of fine print can be nearly impossible. Pact’s formal verification lets you test your contracts to make sure they do what’s intended. Additionally, when you reference code from other contracts, you stay in control of what happens with your transactions, even if they change their code.

Kadena was founded in 2016 by Stuart Popejoy and Will Martino, after leaving JP Morgan’s Blockchain Center for Excellence where they created JP Morgan’s first blockchain, now known as Onyx.

Stuart Haber, one of the co-inventors of blockchain technology, joined Kadena as an advisor to help make significant advancements in the blockchain industry by solving critical issues that have hindered the broader adoption and functionality of blockchain. Stuart was one of the most cited authors of the original Bitcoin whitepapers in 2008.

Annelise Osborne brings extensive experience and strategic vision to Kadena as the new Chief Business Officer (CBO). With over 20 years in finance, credit, real estate, and digital assets, she will be instrumental in driving new business initiatives and partnerships across Web3 and institutional sectors. Before joining Kadena, Osborne held significant roles such as Head of Institutional at Arca Labs and COO at Propellr, and spent 12 years at Moody's. Her expertise lies in leveraging her deep knowledge of both traditional financial markets and blockchain technology to foster innovation and adoption. Mike Herron brings extensive expertise and dynamic leadership to Kadena as its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With over two decades of experience in marketing and branding, including five years in the crypto and blockchain space, Herron is set to drive Kadena's marketing initiatives to new heights. Before joining Kadena, he served as the CMO of Chain, where he successfully led brand development, communications, go-to-market strategies, and product marketing.

Kadena fully released into mainnet in January 2020, with full blockchain and smart contract functionality.