Scalable Kaia: KaiaBFT

1. Why scalability again?

Scalability has been one of crypto’s core engineering questions for years. The conversation is now entering a new phase. Institutional adoption is moving from theory to practice, and that can create demand comparable to, or even beyond, traditional financial infrastructure.

That is why we are pushing Kaia’s scalability one step further. With KaiaBFT, Kaia is working toward 10,000+ TPS while preserving the one-second block interval and immediate finality that the network is built around.

2. Kaia has already proved it

Kaia has operated for more than seven years as a public chain, beginning from Klaytn and continuing into Kaia. Its current consensus design is based on an optimized version of Istanbul BFT, enabling one-second block generation, immediate finality, and high-throughput execution in a live network environment.

Scalability is not proven by benchmark numbers alone. It has to work in production, and Kaia has already done that. The network has also shown strong performance, with throughput higher than 4,000 TPS.

But the next wave of demand is larger. As stablecoins and onchain financial products grow, we need a higher target. The roadmap therefore raises the bar from already strong performance to 10,000+ TPS.

3. What KaiaBFT improves

Throughput depends on the full block production path, not just a single parameter. Transactions move through the transaction pool, block proposal, execution, validation, consensus, state commit, and network propagation.

The existing consensus mechanism keeps a strict one-second block time. Within each one-second cycle, execution has a limited time window because the remaining time is reserved for consensus, validation, and propagation. This keeps block production stable, but it also limits how much throughput can be achieved in each block cycle.

KaiaBFT improves this structure in three main ways:

• Parallelizing consensus and execution: validators can begin executing a proposal after receiving the preprepare message, allowing execution and consensus to overlap where safe.
• Increasing execution time: the protocol can allocate more time to execution while preserving the one-second block target.
• Optimizing the implementation: consensus logic and transaction execution are optimized at the core client level.

4. Test results show the target is feasible

We have already been testing KaiaBFT, and the results show that the 10,000+ TPS target is feasible.

In the devnet test, KaiaBFT processed roughly 10,900 TPS, while maintaining a 1,000ms maximum block interval and reporting 0% transaction failures in that run.

This is the kind of data we wanted to see: higher throughput with stable block timing and low failure rates. It suggests that the improvement is practically achievable, and KaiaBFT is expected to move toward live rollout over the coming months. Live networks include more variables, but the data gives us a credible basis for the next step.

5. Why this matters for the roadmap

This article closes the Kaia Technical Roadmap Deep Dive series. The previous parts covered:

• Permissionless Kaia: opening validator participation while keeping accountability and performance guardrails.
• Agentic Kaia: building the economic layer for AI agents through stablecoin payments, identity, reputation, and programmable commerce.
• Sovereign Kaia: giving institutions sovereignty without ecosystem isolation.
• Auditable Kaia: bringing programmable compliance and auditable privacy to a public settlement layer.

Scalability supports all of them. Permissionless participation needs performance as the validator set evolves. Agentic commerce needs high-volume micro-payments. Sovereignty becomes more powerful when institutions can keep their own requirements while still connecting to scalable shared infrastructure. Compliance and privacy only matter at scale if the network can carry the assets and applications built on top.

KaiaBFT helps support all of these pillars with higher throughput, stable block timing, and reliable finality.

6. Build on scalable Kaia

Kaia Tech Roadmap is built around a simple idea: public infrastructure should be open, accountable, institution-ready, and scalable at the same time.

KaiaBFT is a key piece of that picture. Scalable Kaia means more than higher TPS. It means a network that can support stablecoin payments, institutional settlement, and agentic commerce with the performance, reliability, and finality they need.

We will continue building toward that roadmap, validating it through implementation, and sharing progress as the work moves forward.

Build on Kaia.