Kaia ranks #51 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #167: 116 of the 166 assets ahead of it are not native coins but tokens or claims. A token is issued on a host blockchain rather than running its own; a claim stands for an asset already counted. Of the 161 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 51% are claims on other assets, 42% are tokens and 7% are memecoins.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | C · 61/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #51 |
| Rank counting claims | #167 |
| Market capitalisation | $220M |
| Price | $0.0341 |
| Circulating supply | 6,453,064,365 KAIA |
| Maximum supply | no fixed cap |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | Istanbul BFT (PoS) |
| Network purpose | Smart-contract platform |
| Ledger type | Multi-asset ledger |
| Launch distribution | Presale |
Market figures from the 28 October 2026 build. Open the live view for every exchange's price, and charts.
C — 61 out of 100, provisional (from 18 of 20 criteria, 28 October 2026 build). With what is not yet measured anywhere from nothing to full marks, the score would be 54 to 66 (C to B).
| Criterion | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Leading Consensus Mechanisms (Source) | 9.1 | group average |
| Consensus: leader ladder | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of consensus families ranked by their largest chain's market cap |
| Consensus: family ladder | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of families ranked by the combined market cap of their chains |
| Cryptocurrency Standards (Source) | 4.8 | group average, 11 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 6.6 | 3.3 of 5 points, 1 not yet measured source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 3.4 | no fixed maximum; 6.45 billion in circulation: supply scale 6.7, cap 0 |
| Durability: five years or more with no halt, freeze or reversal | ✓ | 7 full years since its first recorded price, no halt, freeze or reversal in five years |
| Fungibility: every unit interchangeable, none the protocol can freeze or set apart | ✓ | no authority can freeze, blacklist or set apart a coin |
| Divisibility: the smallest unit worth a cent or less | ✓ | 18 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $3.4e-20 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real demand | – | typical fee $0.00002 |
| Verifiability: open-source nodes and checking without a trusted server | ✗ | node software open source; no light clients or pruned nodes |
| Privacy (5 checks) | 2 | 1 of 5 passed source |
| Whitepaper privacy: keys are not tied to an identity | ✓ | Any secp256k1 key can hold and send KAIA; the chain's account and transfer rules carry no identity check. |
| UTXO ledger: a new key for each payment, no account linking every coin | ✗ | |
| Network-level privacy: the node hides where a transaction came from (Dandelion++, Tor or I2P, on by default) | ✗ | Kaia nodes relay transactions directly. |
| Hidden amounts (confidential transactions, RingCT, shielded pools, Mimblewimble) | ✗ | No confidential transactions. |
| Hidden sender and receiver (ring signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, one-time or stealth addresses) | ✗ | No sender or receiver hiding. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | 4.4 | average of 3 parts source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | 10 | typical fee $0.00002 |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 119, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | – | not yet measured |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 0 | a block every 1 second |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | – | not yet measured |
| Features (3 checks) | 3.3 | 1 of 3 passed |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✓ | Istanbul BFT gives immediate deterministic finality with 1-second blocks. |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | ✗ | --state.live-pruning prunes old state tries, but nodes keep every block. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✗ | No light-client protocol; wallets trust RPC servers. |
| Security (miner pay and 7 checks) | 5 | 5 of 9 points source |
| Miners paid a day ($1,000 0, $10 million or more 10), 2 points | 0 | not mined |
| Its own hashrate: at least half its algorithm's largest, not merge-mined | ✗ | not mined |
| Largest pool or validator under 50% | ✓ | 6% |
| Largest three under 75% | ✓ | 16.6% |
| More than one maintained client | ✗ | 1 |
| Node software is open source | ✓ | The Kaia DLT Foundation maintains the only client, kaiachain/kaia (LGPL-3.0), and admits Governance Council members. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✓ | about 145,636 a day |
| No 51% attack or deep reorganisation in five years | ✓ | |
| Programmability (tokens, contracts, 5 checks) | 7.8 | 7 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance at protocol level, validated by its own nodes | 2 | KIP-7 (ERC-20 compatible) contracts on its EVM, open to any account. |
| Smart contracts: a general-purpose contract system | 2 | An EVM open to any account, with DEX and lending applications on mainnet. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✓ | Native AccountKeyWeightedMultiSig (weighted keys against a threshold) plus timelock contracts. |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✓ | EVM HTLC contracts (hash lock plus timelock refund). |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✗ | No exchange in the protocol. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✗ | No protocol messaging to other chains; bridges are third-party. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✓ | KIP-17 (ERC-721 compatible) contracts on the EVM. |
| Decentralisation | 4.5 | section average, 6 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 10 | No authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: No protocol-level freeze of user KAIA is documented; validators are a permissioned Governance Council. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: The Kaia DLT Foundation maintains the only client, kaiachain/kaia (LGPL-3.0), and admits Governance Council members. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 8.6 | Proof of stake: 8.6 of 10 on the ladder of who produces blocks |
| Nodes (Source) | — | Not yet counted |
| Holder concentration (Source) | — | Not yet measured |
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 0 | 100% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. Klaytn created 10B KLAY at genesis (2019) for Kakao/Ground X allocations. After later burns (incl. the 5.30B KIP-103 burn), that genesis allocation alone still exceeds today's ~6.45B supply (CoinGecko total 6,449,710,644, 2026-10-24), so 100. The ecosystem and infrastructure fund shares of block rewards are scored separately as a block-reward cut. source |
| Fundraising | 0 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 100% of supply was theirs to sell, 55.8% sold so far. Ground X's private KLAY sales (Dec 2018 at $0.03, ~$90M; Apr 2019 at $0.08) make up the 36% private-sale bucket of the 10B genesis = ~3.6B KLAY, carried 1:1 into KAIA (Dec 2018 round alone ≈ 3.0B). 3.6B / 6,449,965,814 KAIA (CoinGecko total, 2026-10-24) = 55.8%. Any LINE sales of LINK/FNSA before the 2024 swap are not established and are excluded. Ground X (Kakao) raised ~$90M in a private token sale (Oct-Dec 2018) from IDG Capital, Crescendo Equity Partners, Translink Capital and others, with a further round of similar size planned from March 2019; no public sale. Finschia (LINE) FNSA was swapped in at the 2024 merger. source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 8.2 | Developer share: about 18.3% of today's supply received so far; 50% of each new block reward goes to them today. Klaytn minted 9.6 KLAY/block from Jun 2019 with 54% to the Klaytn Growth Fund and 12% to the Klaytn Improvement Reserve. KGP-3 (Nov 2022) cut this to 6.4 KLAY with 40% KGF and 10% KIR. Since the Aug 2024 Kaia merger it is 9.6 KAIA/block, of which 25% goes to the Kaia Ecosystem Fund and 25% to the Kaia Infrastructure Fund; GC validators get the other 50%. At ~31.5M blocks/yr: 0.66 x 1,026M + 0.5 x 361M + 0.5 x 651M = ~1,183M, which is 18.3% of 6,449.7M. This is gross issuance: KIP-103 and KIP-160 later burned much of the fund balances, so the cut still held today is smaller. source |
| Supply & Demand | 7.2 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 7.7 | average of 6 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 10 | 34 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 5.6 | $4,140,119 traded in 24 hours; #217 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $6,308,661) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 8.4 | 2.5% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 8.1 | $580,785 within 2% of the price on 7 exchanges, 0.26% of its market cap, median of the last 2 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 5.9 | $220M, 5.9 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 8.3 | futures, options and margin positions 2.9% of its market cap |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 6.7 | no fixed maximum; 6.45 billion in circulation |
| Record | 8 | group average |
| Record (origin, claims, halts) | 10 | 3 positive, 0 negative source |
| Positive record | ||
| Launched with a stated purpose, not as a joke | ✓ | |
| No claims by its founders that contradict its own design | ✓ | |
| No halt, freeze or reversal in five years | ✓ | |
| Age (years since genesis) (Source) | 7 | 7 full years since 2019-10-29, the first day with a recorded price (genesis not yet researched, so the age can only be understated). |
| Development (work, improvements, unfixed issues) | 7 | 2 positive, 0 negative, 2 not yet researched source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | 1,520 commits in 12 of the last 12 months (github.com/kaiachain/kaia); kaia v2.2.2, 10 Mar 2026; 8 releases in the last 24 months. |
| Shipped a new capability for users in two years, +1 | ✓ | Prague hardfork (v2.0.2), 17 Jul 2025 at block 190,670,000: EIP-7702 and gas abstraction. |
| Not yet researched | ||
| Shipped a security fix in two years | – | |
| Shipped a scaling upgrade in two years | – | |
Twenty criteria, weighted equally. The Cryptocurrency Standards have six sections: sound money qualities (six checks: scarcity, durability, fungibility, divisibility, portability, verifiability), privacy (five checks), scalability (four measures and three features), security (miner pay and seven checks), programmability (token issuance, smart contracts and five checks) and decentralisation (censorship resistance, no central team, who can mint, nodes, holders, premine, fundraising and developer share). Provisional: criteria marked — are not yet measured and are left out of the average. A rating of structure and market depth, not a price forecast or investment advice. How the grade is built · Highest-graded cryptocurrencies.
6,453,064,365 KAIA are in circulation, against no fixed cap — issuance has no defined end.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 100% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 55.8% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 18.3% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 50% |
| Fundraising | Private or venture funding |
Klaytn created 10B KLAY at genesis (2019) for Kakao/Ground X allocations. After later burns (incl. the 5.30B KIP-103 burn), that genesis allocation alone still exceeds today's ~6.45B supply (CoinGecko total 6,449,710,644, 2026-10-24), so 100. The ecosystem and infrastructure fund shares of block rewards are scored separately as a block-reward cut.
Ground X (Kakao) raised ~$90M in a private token sale (Oct-Dec 2018) from IDG Capital, Crescendo Equity Partners, Translink Capital and others, with a further round of similar size planned from March 2019; no public sale. Finschia (LINE) FNSA was swapped in at the 2024 merger.
Ground X's private KLAY sales (Dec 2018 at $0.03, ~$90M; Apr 2019 at $0.08) make up the 36% private-sale bucket of the 10B genesis = ~3.6B KLAY, carried 1:1 into KAIA (Dec 2018 round alone ≈ 3.0B). 3.6B / 6,449,965,814 KAIA (CoinGecko total, 2026-10-24) = 55.8%. Any LINE sales of LINK/FNSA before the 2024 swap are not established and are excluded.
Klaytn minted 9.6 KLAY/block from Jun 2019 with 54% to the Klaytn Growth Fund and 12% to the Klaytn Improvement Reserve. KGP-3 (Nov 2022) cut this to 6.4 KLAY with 40% KGF and 10% KIR. Since the Aug 2024 Kaia merger it is 9.6 KAIA/block, of which 25% goes to the Kaia Ecosystem Fund and 25% to the Kaia Infrastructure Fund; GC validators get the other 50%. At ~31.5M blocks/yr: 0.66 x 1,026M + 0.5 x 361M + 0.5 x 651M = ~1,183M, which is 18.3% of 6,449.7M. This is gross issuance: KIP-103 and KIP-160 later burned much of the fund balances, so the cut still held today is smaller.
Sources: coincodex.com · btc-echo.de · coingecko.com · docs.kaia.io · govforum.kaia.io · govforum.kaia.io. Researched 2026-10-24, low confidence.
No SEC/CFTC determination — unclassified.
The regulator's position, reported as stated, not CoinSpectrum's. Assets nobody has ruled on are left unclassified rather than sorted by a guess.
Kaia is #51 among cryptocurrencies and #167 in the market ranking, which lists wrapped coins, staked derivatives, stablecoins and tokens alongside them. CoinSpectrum counts an asset once, and counts only cryptocurrencies: assets with their own blockchain and their own consensus. A wrapped coin, a staked derivative or a stablecoin is a claim on something already counted; a token, memecoin or otherwise, runs on another chain's blocks. All of them are listed, each in its own section, and none is added to the total. The 116 places between Kaia's two ranks are held by claims and tokens, not by other networks. The methodology sets out the rule and the counting rule argues for it.
The price above is the median of the exchanges the site reads live, checked every minute and cross-checked against a market snapshot (how market data is gathered). The grade is scored on published criteria, each with its source (the method). The site is independent, nothing on it is a paid placement, and its statements are signed (about CoinSpectrum, the manifesto).