Kyber Network (KNC) announced on July 7 that its Katalyst upgrade and governance platform KyberDAO had officially launched. The upgrade brings both technical improvements and further decentralization to the protocol.

First announced in December 2019, the Katalyst upgrade has long been anticipated by investors of the liquidity protocol. The Katalyst upgrade brings technical improvements, such as the ability to set custom spread/fees on each trade, reduced network fees, reserve routing, and a host of other benefits. The network fee has been reduced to 0.2%, and liquidity providers are incentivized as they get rebates from network fees.

However, the most significant change is the introduction of the decentralized governance model - KyberDAO. A new website has accompanied the launch, a portal with a governance dashboard where the roughly 72,000 KNC stakeholders can stake their holdings to make decisions on the protocol. 

Proposals are made every 2 weeks, in periods called Epochs. The first Epoch will begin on July 14. Participation by staking in Epochs will reward stakeholders according to eligible stakes and voting participation.

The team also announced that it was in the middle of preparing a Kyber Improvement Proposal and that all stakeholders are encouraged to participate in the voting process when it begins. 

Kyber Network has seen several notable developments occurring since the start of 2020, including being approved as collateral on the Maker (MKR) platform.