NKN (NKN)

 NKN (NKN), short for New Kind of Network, is a decentralized and open-source network protocol designed for public blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Its primary goal is to tackle the challenges faced by today's internet, including issues related to centralization, scalability, and security.

The founders of NKN are Yanbo Li, Bruce Li, and Yilun Zhang, all of whom have backgrounds in networking software and blockchain technology. The project boasts notable advisors such as Stephen Wolfram, the creator of Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha, and Whitfield Diffie, the inventor of public-key cryptography.

NKN's uniqueness lies in its focus on decentralizing internet infrastructure, improving scalability, and enhancing network security. It aims to provide a cost-effective platform for decentralized applications by leveraging community participation.

Some notable use cases for NKN include a Content Delivery system in partnership with Chinese video giant iQIYI, Edge computing with China Mobile, a secure messaging app called D-chat, and a secure remote terminal access tool named nShell.

NKN employs a consensus algorithm based on Cellular Automata, where a simple local majority rule leads to system-level convergence in a small number of iterations. The network also utilizes a global addressing scheme based on public keys, enabling direct peer-to-peer communication without centralized servers. Packet routing is facilitated by the Chord Distributed Hash Table (DHT), which maps each NKN address to a random and verifiable position on the Chord DHT ring.

The native token of the NKN network is NKN, with a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 tokens. Currently, there are 754,831,362 NKN tokens in circulation. The network is secured through a mechanism called Proof-of-Relay (PoR), also known as "useful Proof-of-Work," where miners are rewarded for relaying real-world (useful) data along the network.

NKN tokens can be purchased on various centralized exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin, Bittrex, Huobi, Gate.io, Bitget, and Crypto.com, among others. Users can track NKN live prices in real-time using the CoinMarketCap mobile app.

For further reading, interested individuals can explore decentralized applications (dApps), learn about Web 3.0 in the CoinMarketCap glossary, or delve into DePin (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure) through CoinMarketCap's resources.