NKN, standing for New Kind of Network, is a decentralized, open-source network protocol that operates on a public blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) network. It seeks to address the challenges faced by the current internet, such as centralization, scalability issues, and security concerns. NKN's primary objective is to share network bandwidth and internet connectivity. The NKN network operates on a unique consensus algorithm based on Cellular Automata, which allows for system-level convergence through simple local majority rules. The NKN token is the native token of the NKN network, with a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 tokens.

NKN operates using a global addressing scheme based on public keys, enabling direct peer-to-peer communication without centralized servers. The routing of packets is based on the Chord Distributed Hash Table (DHT), which maps each NKN address to a random and verifiable position on the Chord DHT ring. NKN's network security is ensured through a mechanism called Proof-of-Relay (PoR), which compensates miners for relaying real-world data along the network. This is a departure from traditional proof-of-work systems, which reward based on computing hash functions.

NKN has several potential use cases, including a Content Delivery system, Edge computing, D-chat (a secure messaging app), and nShell (secure remote terminal access). These applications strive to harness the collective power of the community to create a cost-effective platform for decentralized applications. By tokenizing network connectivity and data transmission capacity, NKN aims to incentivize the sharing of network resources, thereby improving the utilization of network resources and the efficiency of data transmission.

NKN was founded by Yanbo Li, Bruce Li, and Yilun Zhang, who have backgrounds in networking software and blockchain technology. The project was launched in July 2019 with the NKN Mainnet and has since grown to include up to 25,000 full consensus nodes. The project's advisors include Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha, and Whitfield Diffie, inventor of public-key cryptography. NKN's main goals include decentralizing internet infrastructure, improving scalability, and promoting network security.