Korea’s Klaytn blockchain has experienced some big-name governing council losses in the last couple of months, including LG Electronics and Hashed. Korea’s blockchain is permissionless in that anyone can access it, but the write nodes are operated by governing council members in a similar way to the Hedera Hashgraph DLT. At one point, Klaytn’s council included Worldpay, Shinhan Bank, LG Electronics, LG International, SK Networks and Philippines UnionBank. Of this group, only SK Networks remains.
LG Electronics, Shinhan Bank and Worldpay’s parent FIS are on the Hedera governing council and are still active, according to recent governing council minutes.
The Klaytn blockchain was founded by Korea’s major social network Kakao and its blockchain subsidiary Ground X which is the partner for Bank of Korea’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) experiments.
LG Electronics withdrew in March when its contractual commitment ended and decided not to renew. The recent withdrawal of Hashed, a major blockchain investor and player, is more curious. Hashed was heavily involved in the collapsed Terra ecosystem, notably the Anchor Protocol, which offered unsustainable interest rates of up to 19.5% on Terra stablecoins.
Klaytn has no shortage of candidates for the governing council, but the profile has evolved from more mainstream firms to more crypto-focused ones.
That seems to be by design, as the announcement that included the withdrawal of Hashed stated: “As part of our continuous efforts to enhance Klaytn’s Governance Council by including only crypto-first organizations that are able to contribute significantly to the Klaytn ecosystem, Hashed and Thrust will be stepping down.”
However, Hashed had been extremely active in developing the Klaytn ecosystem. It jointly operated nodes with Ozys, which were separated in March. Klaytn uses proof of stake, and according to local news outlet DealSite, the number of coins staked by Hashed and Ozys was second only to Kakao.
Hashed told the news site that the withdrawal was an internal strategic change.
