Kin Plans to Keep Ethereum Token, But Fork Stellar Blockchain To Avoid Scalability Issues

Developers of Kin, the altcoin that facilitates transactions within the Kik ecosystem, are planning a fork from Stellar to steer clear of potential issues of scalability and high transaction fees.

Kin was originally developed as an ERC20 token, but as time progressed, developers soon realized the limitations of the Ethereum blockchain in relation to its scalability and transaction speeds.

"Most crypto projects to date have been technology-driven first and product-driven second. Kin has always been the opposite. After working heads down alongside the best minds in the industry, we came to the conclusion that a hybrid solution of Ethereum and our own fork of Stellar would benefit the Kin Ecosystem both short and long-term."

The parent organization overseeing the development of these tokens, The Kin Foundation, announced on Tuesday that it will fork Stellar to create its own unique blockchain.

Currently, Kin adheres to the ERC20 token standard which seems to be the cause of some concern for the developers of these tokens.

They are now re-considering the future of Kin in light of the Ethereum's current scalability issues.

While the developers of Kin had earlier planned to transition exclusively to the Stellar network, this approach was later refined and now the team has envisioned a two-chain system in which the Kin token would operate in parallel on both, the Stellar and Ethereum networks.

Kin is set to offer users with "Bi-directional blockchain support" which means that consumer-facing applications will make use of the company's proprietary Kin network instead of the one deployed by Stellar.

"Our goal is for Kin to be the most used cryptocurrency in the world, and this will help get us there sooner."

The end-goal for the company is to completely eliminate transaction fees on the Kin network and thus make microtransactions more streamlined and hassle-free for customers.