“2023 was a game-changing chapter for KYVE, with the establishment of our foundation KYVE has laid the base for a strong, sustainable, and decentralized future.” Stated KYVE’s Founder, Fabian Riewe. “By breaking significant ground in the data space this year, KYVE really set the stage for our ambitions in 2024. With data being the root of today’s modern world and its success, KYVE is sure that data needs to be a truly trustless public and accessible good. KYVE is here to make this happen.”

In a digital era where data is king, KYVE has emerged as a pivotal force in blockchain infrastructure. In 2023, KYVE established its foundation, launched mainnet, released new tooling, and overall set new standards in the data space. This article unveils KYVE’s significant 2023 achievements, partnerships, and community growth, laying the groundwork for 2024.

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Read on to get caught up, and be sure to follow KYVE to stay tuned for all that’s to come…

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Table of Contents

• The Year of Launches: Testnet, Foundation, Mainnet, & more
• Forging Strategic Partnerships: Expanding KYVE’s Ecosystem
• Watching Our International Community Grow To Over 170k
• A Year of Unforgettable Events: Attending 80+ Events & Conferences
• A Strong Base For Take Off: Looking Forward to 2024

The Year of Launches: Testnet, Mainnet, & more

Testnet
To ensure a smooth mainnet launch, KYVE released a new and improved testnet dubbed Kaon to provide an as close to mainnet replica for testing purposes. Kaon’s launch was a success, providing an essential testing environment for KYVE’s genesis validators.

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Mainnet
On none other than Pi Day, KYVE went live, enacting the chain layer and tokenomics. Within the first 48 hours of launch, KYVE’s 100 chain validator slots were filled, providing a secure base for the protocol. Not long after, the protocol was in full swing, with the first data pools launched and protocol validators joining in to decentralize the network.

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“We’re thrilled to see KYVE officially launch mainnet, bringing forward yet another innovative solution, built on Cosmos SDK, for enhancing today’s developer experience. With KYVE, free and easy access to trustless data is now possible.” Chris Zhong, Technical Director, Interchain Foundation.

“Congratulations to KYVE on their mainnet launch, which will make access to reliable decentralized data across Web3 easier for all. NEAR’s focus on ease of use for developers and users with the Blockchain Operating System relies on accessing data from various blockchains, which KYVE provides.” Illia Polosukhin, Co-Founder, NEAR Protocol.

Foundation
To support the further growth of the KYVE ecosystem and to provide a legal wrapper for the KYVE community, the KYVE Foundation was incorporated in March 2023 in Switzerland. The KYVE Foundation shall act as a steward for the KYVE ecosystem with regard to ecosystem, protocol as well as governance matters. Stay tuned for 2024!

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KYVE Academy & Zealy
Although KYVE is a very technical product, its mission of making data a trustless public good goes beyond just developers and is crucial for all to understand and recognize for the success of Web3. To ease the technical barriers, the KYVE Academy was introduced, offering a diverse range of courses, from beginner-level insights into crypto fundamentals to advanced developer tutorials.

“I recently completed KYVE academy lessons, and I must say that it was an outstanding learning experience! The course was very well-structured, with clear and concise explanations that made complex concepts about Blockchain, decentralization, $KYVE delegation and Cosmos ecosystem easy to understand. The academy’s content was highly relevant to what I’m interested in.” — unddka#7658, KYVE Academy student.

Simultaneously, KYVE launched the Zealy campaign, enticing learners with Zealy points upon course completion. Rewards for the Zealy program are to be announced in 2024. Within the first month, the KYVE Academy gained over 3k students, and the Zealy community grew to over 17k members.

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On-Chain Milestones: Surpassing 15M Transactions & Providing The Fastest Sync

After just a few short months on mainnet, KYVE surpassed 2TB of bundled data uploaded (the size of a few blockchains!), followed by 17M+ on-chain transactions, with an average of 150k+ transactions per day. Plus, the data run through the protocol is made trustless via the network’s 60 active validators and secured by over $20M in stake (value taken on Dec. 20th, 2023).

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This consistent growth has led KYVE to be ranked as one of the most active chains in the Cosmos Ecosystem.

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Making History With Our Latest Data-Syncing Tool, KSYNC

“KYVE’s KSYNC tool is a game-changer. It lets node runners sync with historical data in a breeze. And they’ve got two incredible data pools: Block Integration for all your data needs, and State-Sync Integration for rock-solid node reliability.” — Validatus, KYVE ecosystem validator.

With the latest Archway state-sync data pool being fully up to date, it has become the first chain that node runners can sync to any historical height in under two minutes, thanks to KYVE’s node syncing tool KSYNC. Making history not only for its speed but for its ability to enable syncing with trustless, free data.

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There have also been major improvements to its testnet Kaon, a regenesis for its devnet, Korellia, and new tools for protocol validators like Supervysor, overall enhancing all user experiences around the protocol. KYVE also launched an official Beta Testers Program to ensure thorough testing of all new products, features, and tooling.

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KYVE’s Data Pipeline has also seen some progress. The no-code solution for importing trustless data into your preferred data backends for easy transformation and data management is close to full use for the latest integrations, with open-sourced data templates on the way.

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“While working with KYVE on the Data Pipeline, we noticed the pipeline’s unparalleled ability to handle historical data and its potential for extracting insights from blockchain transactions and events, which is why we’re committed to exploring and building innovative applications on top of KYVE’s robust technology stack.” — RocketFuel, KYVE Technology Partner.

Forging Strategic Partnerships: Expanding KYVE’s Ecosystem

Being a Cosmos SDK chain, having the first data pool integration be Cosmos Hub was a unanimous decision. And although this blockchain is quite data-heavy, KYVE has already archived and validated the entire chain up to the latest blocks, providing trustless Cosmos Hub data for interchain builders and validators.

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From there, KYVE continued to expand its ecosystem, archiving and validating Osmosis, the interchain liquidity lab, and Axelar, the secure cross-chain communication protocol. As well as Archway, the value capture chain, which is also fully caught up to date and fully usable, not only for blocks and block results, but also for syncing state snapshots to reach specific heights via KSYNC, as mentioned above.

“Embracing the power of decentralization, we are thrilled to partner with KYVE Network. This new data pool provides a trustless backup of our chain, enabling secure and flexible data sourcing for our ecosystem. We look forward to supporting KYVE as they continue to build out a fast, secure, and scalable ecosystem where trustless data flows seamlessly, revolutionizing the way we access and utilize information on the blockchain.” — Max McKendry, Head of Business Development, Phi Labs

The last integration of the year was in partnership with Cronos, the leading Ethereum-compatible L1, to provide a trustless backup of their chain’s blocks, block results, and state snapshots for their vast ecosystem.

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It’s important to note that anyone can create a data pool on KYVE, which means KYVE can be implemented as your own blockchain’s validation layer. Much like what Usher Labs did when creating Log Store Network, which leverages KYVE as its validation layer and storage mechanism, enabling a fully decentralized, immutable time-series database for Streamr data.

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“I discovered KYVE prior to a hackathon where I first began implementing it. I was searching for tech to support decentralized immutability of data.” — Ryan Soury, Log Store Network.

Along with these integrations, KYVE partnered with many other innovative projects to enhance its ecosystem and continue to enable a streamlined data experience for all users. For example, KYVE was integrated into Streamr, providing another way to access and subscribe to KYVE’s data lake, as well as bring trustless data to Streamr users.

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KYVE also partnered with Syntropy! Taking interchain data to new bounds. In the spirit of the modular era, Syntropy andKYVE are each bringing forward their specialized data solutions to ensure a reliable, full-scope data experience from start to finish for both historical & real-time data streams, providing solutions for today’s Cosmos ecosystem data challenges.

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An infrastructure partnership was also assembled between KYVE, Spheron, and Akash to promote a decentralized community and help reduce the infrastructure costs for node runners.

“Spheron’s partnership with KYVE allows for frictionless node deployment on Akash Network’s censorship-resistant open cloud while enjoying considerable savings on their cloud costs. We’re excited to support our ecosystem of partners, and welcome Spheron’s initiative to onboard KYVE node operators to the open cloud.” — Boz Menzalji, COO of Overclock Labs (Creators of Akash Network).

Other strategic partnerships to boost KYVE performance and user experience include:

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• Keplr, Leap Cosmos, and Cosmotation for web app wallet support.
• ViewBlock, Mintscan, Map of Zones, and Keplr Dashboard for more insights into the network.
• Being integrated into Babylon, gaining further security via Bitcoin.
• Commonwealth to provide the community with a streamlined forum for discussion and brainstorming.
• Integrating Kapa.ai into the docs enables users to get their KYVE questions answered quickly.
• LearnWeb3, not only to host beginner courses for developers to understand KYVE but also to join in on their first official hackathon.

Not to mention the 30+ current partners we continued to collaborate with to expand our unified goal of enhancing the Web3 data space.

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Hopping On The Hackathon Train

Now officially on mainnet with trustless data ready to build with, KYVE co-sponsored its first few hackathons.

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Starting with this year’s Interchain Hackathon in Seoul where KYVE judged alongside Chainapsis, the Interchain Foundation, Celestia, Keplr, Osmosis, Argus, Radius, and Wonderstruck. VBase, the Decentralized Proposal Review Submission and Storage Platform for Interchain Validators, not only won our bounty but won first overall from the hackathon’s judge feedback!

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Next was LearnWeb3’s Decentralized Intelligence Online Hackathon, with developer @Primo_Data winning our bounty for creating “Crypto Queries,” an innovative dApp using KYVE’s trustless data and Streamr, Arbitrum, SpaceID Protocol, and ThirdWeb for on-chain data querying with unique features: query NFTs & AI prompts.

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KYVE looks forward to participating in more hackathons and bounties in 2024, encouraging further innovative and essential building with KYVE’s trustless data.

Watching Our International Community Grow To Over 170k

From the start, KYVE’s community has always been extremely strong, global, and passionate. It’s a pleasure to continue seeing this sentiment around KYVE grow and expand to new countries and communities. KYVE-ers now stand at over 170k globally, with 90 ambassadors and 40 beta testers.

“@KYVENetwork’s 2023 achievements are nothing short of remarkable! The mainnet launch, massive data handling, and strategic partnerships mark a year of incredible progress. We look forward to seeing what 2024 holds for KYVE and its expanding ecosystem!” — Validatus, KYVE Network validator.

“You guys are doing great work. So far we are highly impressed with this brand. The whole team is outstanding and has been there for us every step of the way. We look forward to continuing the success of KYVE.” — Sabico, KYVE Community Member.

“Thank you KYVE developers for updating us on the progress of mainnet and what’s coming up for KYVE Network, it shows hard-working developers and a team that strives hard to achieve a goal. Thumbs up.” — Jabz, KYVE Community Member.

A Year of Unforgettable Events: Attending 80+ Events & Conferences

This past year, KYVE visited almost all continents, going from Consensus2023 and IBC Summit to Avalanche Summit, over to Prague Blockchain Week, EthCC Paris, Proof of Talk, Nebular Summit, Osmoscon, and more. Then Awesomewasm and Atom Berlin, over to Smartcon Barcelona. Can’t forget Korea Blockchain Week and Token2049 in Singapore. Finally, Lisbon Blockchain Week and DappConnect Istanbul.

We didn’t just show up — we took the mic, giving talks and demos on the importance of building with trustless data, as well as ran side events like Born to Build and Deutsche Telekom and the Graph’s Berlin meetup, getting together with our passionate community and partners.

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But the highlight? Hosting our first-ever data conference in Istanbul during DappConnect, “Open Data Gunu”. KYVE co-hosted the conference with Chainbase and IOSG, with BNB Greenfield, Metamask, Mina, NEAR, CoinGecko, 1Inch, Gictoin, and 20+ other leading projects giving specialized talks and panels. From discussing data in DeFi to MEV, data infra for the next-gen, AA, and more, the event covered a whole spectrum of data talk. Keep an eye out for Open Data Day 2 next year.

“Open Data Günü dived deep into Web3 data, uniting blockchain insights with app-level verticals and AI intersections. Beyond data, it symbolized our collective journey towards a decentralized future!” — EthStorage Team

A Strong Base For Take Off: Looking Forward to 2024

“We’re constantly impressed by KYVE’s ability to ship products and engage their community with a developer-centric approach to data validity. We see their Web3 infrastructure as critical to climate data use cases, both Web2 and Web3, in this decade. What we’ve seen recently is that fighting climate change is as much a coordination problem as it is a technological problem, and providing trustless and easy access to climate data will go a long way toward addressing these core coordination issues.” Jahed Momand, General Partner at Cerulean Ventures.

Overall, this year has been pivotal for KYVE’s development. Now, with the protocol live and already bringing a major positive impact to the data user experience for pertinent blockchains, KYVE is here to lead the world into the future of data.

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Follow KYVE to stay tuned for all that’s in store for 2024, like extending its solution outside of the interchain into other ecosystems, enhancing its user experience, more strategic partnerships, and building collaborations, hackathons, and other exciting milestones. Trust us, you won’t want to miss what’s coming!

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Finally, a big thank you to KYVE’s dedicated investors, partners, network participants, and amazing community for their unwavering support throughout this year! KYVE wouldn’t be where it’s at today without you all.

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Blog Author: Margaux, KYVE Head of Marketing