About The Kima Blockchain
Kima is a blockchain that tackles the interoperability problems found in existing solutions without causing additional liquidity fragmentation. Kima addresses this problem by providing a simple, secure mechanism for allowing users to perform cross-chain atomic swaps without token-wrapping.
The Kima blockchain is built using the Cosmos SDK, which provides a steadfast framework for developing a custom blockchain. The Kima blockchain uses committee-based consensus, where a “committee” is selected to produce blocks and run the consensus protocol. Each committee consists of a rotating set of “wardens” whose role is to ensure the asset pools remain in sync and withdrawals from a pool on the destination chain are only authorized when a corresponding deposit has been confirmed on the source chain. Kima wardens control the asset pools through the use of Threshold Signature Schemes (TSS). Security is strengthened by running the wardens inside a Trusted Execution Environment. The group wardens and the parameters of the Kima platform are controlled through the Kima blockchain.
To avoid creating synthetic (“wrapped”) tokens on each chain, Kima maintains liquidity pools on each integrated layer-1 blockchain (e.g. Ethereum, Polygon, Solana). The Kima protocol, run on the Kima blockchain, monitors and synchronizes assets across these layer-1 blockchains.
The Kima blockchain is both permissioned and permissionless. The permissioned layer includes validators approved by Kima and known for their reliability - e.g. funds, banks, organizations, etc. The second layer of the Kima blockchain validators is permissionless, allowing anyone with enough (delegated) stake to become a block producer (and warden). The permissionless nature of the Kima blockchain means that the set of wardens will change regularly.
The 2 layer consensus mechanism archives stability, security, and decentralisation.
The Kima blockchain has four main goals:
To manage and update the set of wardens for the committee-based consensus.
To execute platform governance, e.g. choosing the blockchains and supported tokens, setting fees, etc.
To create an auditable record. Every cross-chain swap will be recorded on the Kima blockchain (and the underlying chains) to create a secure audit trail and provide accountability for the wardens.
To enable cross-chain messaging. As Kima moves beyond its initial deployment, it will enable users to perform more than just simple cross-chain atomic swaps. The Kima messaging platform will allow users to interact with contracts across multiple blockchains from a single, unified environment.
When users request cross-chain transfers, the warden committee is responsible for:
Recording the request on the Kima blockchain
Monitoring the source chain to ensure the deposit was received
Completing a threshold signature to release funds on the destination chain
Recording the finalized process on the Kima blockchain
The Kima consensus and the underlying threshold signature scheme provide an auditable record of the actions of the validators (committee of wardens). Thus, if a committee member misbehaves during the consensus protocol or the threshold signature scheme, there is evidence of this misbehavior. This can be presented as proof and used to slash the committee member’s stake.
This architecture has been proven in Cosmos SDK-built systems like Axelar and Thorchain. As in other Cosmos-based blockchains, a committee of validators is elected through stake-weighted voting. In addition to producing blocks on the Kima blockchain, the block producers are responsible for validating and recording events that happen on the connected chains. To do this, Kima block producers can run full nodes of each of the connected blockchains.
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