What is Kaspa (KAS)?

New projects are emerging every day in the cryptocurrency world. Kaspa (KAS) is one of them, a high-speed Layer-1 blockchain project we've been hearing about frequently lately. So, what is Kaspa, and what are its features that make it stand out from other decentralized blockchain projects? In short, Kaspa is an open-source Layer-1 blockchain that aims to solve scalability and transaction speed issues. In this guide, we will cover topics such as what KAS coin is, how Kaspa works, its technological differences, and its future.

Kaspa's Definition and Origins

Kaspa is a high-performance Layer-1 cryptocurrency project developed to provide an innovative solution to the scalability and transaction speed problems in blockchain technology. In its most basic definition, it is a platform that aims to eliminate the slowness and low transaction capacity problems experienced by traditional networks like Bitcoin. While achieving this, it utilizes a proprietary protocol and architecture to ensure decentralization and security. Designed with a completely open-source and decentralized structure, Kaspa is a community-driven project, independent of any company or authority. Its founding involved no pre-mining, private equity (VC) sales, or ICOs, ensuring fair distribution. In this respect, Kaspa stands out as a cryptocurrency that has operated on the principle of fair distribution from the outset.

What makes Kaspa technically special is that it processes blocks in a graph structure, not a chain structure. Kaspa is built on a unique consensus protocol called GHOSTDAG. This protocol allows blocks to be generated in parallel, rather than being sequenced in a single chain, while still maintaining network consensus. In traditional blockchains (such as Bitcoin), when two blocks are generated simultaneously, only one wins, and the other is discarded as an orphan. However, Kaspa's GhostDAG protocol, instead of rejecting such orphan blocks, incorporates them all into the main structure and sorts them. As a result, the network can generate blocks much faster without compromising security. This architecture is called blockDAG. So, what is blockDAG? Simply put, it's a block structure where blocks are arranged in a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), a directed acyclic graph, rather than a single linear chain. Thanks to Kaspa's DAG structure, multiple blocks can be generated simultaneously, and these are processed in the correct order using the GhostDAG algorithm. This structure makes the network both scalable and significantly shortens block confirmation times. The image below provides a simple example of a DAG-based block structure:

Unlike traditional blockchains, Kaspa structures blocks on a DAG graph instead of a single chain. This way, multiple blocks formed simultaneously are not considered "orphans"; they are all incorporated into the main structure and sequenced using the GhostDAG protocol. So, what is GhostDAG? In this protocol, parallel blocks allow for a significant increase in the network's transaction capacity and speed. This innovative approach puts Kaspa at the forefront of the high-speed Layer-1 chain category.

Kaspa's emergence dates back to 2021. The project was launched in 2021 by Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky. Sompolinsky is an academic specializing in blockchain, particularly DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph)-based consensus algorithms. In fact, the GHOST protocol, developed in 2013 with his mentor Prof. Aviv Zohar, is known as a significant innovation even cited in the Ethereum whitepaper. In other words, Kaspa's founder is a pioneer in work that inspired Ethereum's scalability solutions. This history suggests that the Kaspa project emerged with a similar vision—high scalability and speed. The fact that the word "Kaspa" means "money" or "silver" in Ancient Aramaic adds an interesting cultural anecdote to this project.

Ultimately, Kaspa emerged in 2021 as an academic-based initiative, combining the innovative GhostDAG protocol with the blockDAG architecture to become a high-speed and fair Layer-1 blockchain project. Now that we've covered the basics, let's briefly review Kaspa's development process and key milestones.

Kaspa's History: Major Milestones

Despite its relatively new history, the Kaspa project has made significant strides in a short time. Here are some key milestones and developments from Kaspa's history:

• 2021: The Kaspa mainnet was launched. Kaspa launched in November 2021 in a fair manner; the mainnet was fully open to the community, without pre-mining or private token sales. This marked the first live testing of the network using the underlying GhostDAG protocol.
• 2022: The stable version of the GHOSTDAG protocol was released, increasing network stability. Throughout 2022, the Kaspa development team matured the GhostDAG algorithm, ensuring the secure and smooth operation of the network. This enabled the Kaspa network to consistently maintain a high block production rate. By the end of 2022, Kaspa had solidified its technical infrastructure and acquired a community of early adopters.
• 2023: Community growth accelerated, and Kaspa mining activity saw a significant increase. GPU miners, particularly those left idle after Ethereum's transition from proof-of-work to PoS, turned to Kaspa. Kaspa became a favorite among individual miners because it could be mined with a GPU (Kaspa mining) and was resistant to ASIC devices. During this period, the first open-source GPU mining software was developed, and the Kaspa network's hash rate rose rapidly. With the growth of the community, Kaspa's market capitalization also increased significantly; in 2023, the KAS price rose from a few cents to ten cents, attracting attention to the project.
• 2024: Kaspa began listing on major cryptocurrency exchanges, and its market capitalization increased significantly. In late 2023 and early 2024, top-tier centralized exchanges such as KuCoin, Gate.io, Bybit, and Kraken listed the KAS token. This allowed Kaspa to reach a wider investor base, and daily transaction volumes began reaching millions of dollars. In August 2024, the KAS price rose to approximately $0.20, reaching an all-time high. In 2024, Kaspa announced future goals, such as smart contract support, in its technical roadmap.
• 2025: A major technological leap forward occurred in the Kaspa network. In May 2025, with an update codenamed "Crescendo," Kaspa's core software was rewritten from Go to Rust, increasing its block generation speed by a factor of 10. Previously, Kaspa generated 1 block per second, but after this update, it could generate 10 blocks per second. This made Kaspa the world's fastest proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain. The GhostDAG protocol achieved its full potential for the first time at 10 blocks per second, offering a practically instantaneous transaction confirmation experience. Moreover, while this improvement was made, the network's decentralized and secure structure remained intact, making it possible to run a Kaspa node even with a standard computer. 2025 also saw increased expectations for Kaspa to be listed on major exchanges. While not yet listed on major platforms like Binance, the Kaspa community and developers continued to work to further advance the growing project. As a result, by 2025, Kaspa had become a technically mature blockchain project with proven scalability and a strong community.

Why Is Kaspa Valuable?

For a crypto project to be successful in the long term, it must possess a fair and sustainable ecosystem, in addition to its technical advantages. The key features that make Kaspa valuable can be summarized as follows:

High scalability and transaction speed

Kaspa's blockDAG architecture provides it with unparalleled scalability. Unlike traditional blockchains, Kaspa can generate multiple blocks simultaneously, theoretically capable of processing thousands of transactions per second. Indeed, even rival projects claim that the Kaspa network can achieve a performance of approximately 10,000 TPS (transactions per second). The 2025 update, which reduced block time from 1 second to 0.1 seconds, made Kaspa one of the fastest Layer-1s in practice. Thanks to this high throughput, the network can operate without congestion even under heavy usage conditions. For example, if we compare Kaspa vs. Bitcoin: While Bitcoin is limited to a maximum of 7 transactions per second, Kaspa far exceeds this limit with its parallel block generation. While Bitcoin is forced to keep block generation rates low to maintain security, Kaspa eliminates this requirement with GhostDAG, offering a high-speed Layer-1 chain without compromising security or decentralization.

Instant confirmation and low latency

The Kaspa network can provide near-instant finality in confirming transactions. Thanks to its very short block times and the ability to add blocks in parallel, the time between a transaction being sent to the network and its confirmation is a blink. In Kaspa, the initial confirmation is sub-second. This means a transaction can be included in blocks and confirmed in a fraction of a second. This speed is particularly advantageous for instant payments or e-commerce transactions in daily life. While it takes minutes (or even around 10 minutes for Bitcoin) for a transaction to be finalized on networks like Bitcoin or Ethereum, Kaspa allows for highly reliable confirmation within seconds because blocks arrive sequentially and quickly. Furthermore, thanks to the GhostDAG protocol, multiple confirmations arrive with parallel blocks, ensuring transaction finality is also achieved quickly. Another consequence of low latency and high speed is low transaction fees. Because a large number of transactions can be processed on the network per unit of time, fees remain very low, even as demand increases. Kaspa charges its users only pennies or less per transaction, making it attractive for micropayments or applications requiring frequent transactions.

Fair and decentralized economic model

Another aspect that increases Kaspa's value is its fair distribution and economic mobility. Unlike many projects, Kaspa launched entirely community-driven. This means it started from scratch without any pre-sale, private investment, or secret team allocations. This prevents the accumulation of coins in the hands of a specific group, ensuring a distributed distribution. From the beginning, the project has remained committed to being 100% open-source and 100% decentralized, with no single authority in governance or decision-making. Kaspa's total supply is also transparent: the maximum supply is set at approximately 28.7 billion KAS. Instead of halvings every four years like Bitcoin, Kaspa implements small monthly reductions to gradually reduce inflation, coinciding with annual halvings. This "smooth emission" model prevents sudden supply shocks and makes miners' rewards more predictable. Ultimately, Kaspa is designed to have a deflationary structure with decreasing inflation over time. The limited and fairly distributed supply also enhances Kaspa's potential for storing value.

Accessibility and ASIC resistance in mining

Kaspa utilizes proof-of-work (PoW) consensus, but prioritizes fairness and accessibility in mining. Thanks to the specially developed kHeavyHash algorithm, Kaspa mining can be done efficiently with GPU graphics cards. This algorithm utilizes high computational power efficiently and is energy-optimized. Designed to be resistant to ASIC devices, it: In other words, instead of an environment where only massive ASIC mining farms, as in Bitcoin, were profitable, the goal was an ecosystem where ordinary users could participate with their graphics cards. Indeed, in Kaspa's early years, mining with CPUs and GPUs was at the forefront, and block rewards were distributed among small miners. The very short block time also reduces fluctuations in mining income. For example, because Bitcoin's block discovery interval is 10 minutes, solo mining has low income stability, forcing miners to join large pools. However, because Kaspa generates multiple blocks per second, even small-scale miners have the opportunity to find blocks more frequently, reducing the need for pooling and decentralizing mining. As a result, we can say that Kaspa mining operations are open to the masses, energy-efficient, and fair.

 

The points above summarize that Kaspa is a relatively strong project in terms of technology and community. Kaspa offers an innovation that brings the blockchain trilemma (the triple bind between security, scalability, and decentralization) closer to a solution. As a highly secure PoW network, Kaspa offers resistance to 51% attacks comparable to Bitcoin (security), the ability of even ordinary users to run and mine full nodes (decentralization), and the high transaction throughput it achieves (scalability) make Kaspa unique. All these features also hold promise for the future of Kaspa Coin. The development team is currently working on new Rust-based infrastructure, smart contracts, and DeFi integration.

Who is the Founder of Kaspa?

Kaspa's founder is Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky. Yonatan Sompolinsky is a computer scientist and cryptographer known for his pioneering academic work in the blockchain field. In 2013, while still a graduate student, his advisor, Prof. Together with Aviv Zohar, he designed an alternative block validation mechanism called the GHOST protocol. This protocol was one of the innovations mentioned in Ethereum's whitepaper as a scalability goal and made Sompolinsky a well-known name in the blockchain world. The Kaspa project, a product of this academic background, was launched by Yonatan Sompolinsky in 2021. Sompolinsky wanted to implement DAG-based consensus algorithms inspired by Ethereum's "uncle block" structure in the real world, and he brought this vision to life with Kaspa.

Beyond the founder, Kaspa is backed by a strong team of developers and researchers. DAGLabs, a research company founded by Sompolinsky, played a significant role in the project's emergence. Within DAGLabs, the GhostDAG protocol was implemented, laying the foundations for Kaspa. The project was subsequently made fully open source and has continued to evolve with contributions from a growing community. Kaspa's core development team includes many experts in distributed systems and cryptography. Developers such as Michael Sutton, Shai Wyborski, Mike Zak, Elichai Turkel, and Anton Yemelyanov have played a significant role in the maturation of Kaspa's codebase.

The Kaspa project is maintained by a decentralized community. This means Kaspa lacks a single, centralized institution, similar to the Ethereum Foundation. Instead, it utilizes distributed structures that support the Kaspa ecosystem. For example, the nonprofit, community-driven Kaspa Ecosystem Foundation incentivizes contributors by providing grant programs to developers. Thanks to initiatives like these, Kaspa's development has been made sustainable. While not a formal company, the Kaspa community operates globally. In fact, the project defines itself as a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) and is governed by community initiative without a legal entity. Development proposals, network updates, and other decisions are discussed on online platforms and made by community consensus.

In short, the project, born from the visionary work of Kaspa founder Yonatan Sompolinsky, has become an open-source Layer-1 blockchain project supported by a wide range of developers and users. While Sompolinsky's academic work continues to guide the project, organizations like the Kaspa Foundation help coordinate the community. This makes Kaspa a truly decentralized cryptocurrency project, growing through collective effort and not under a single leader.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

In the following section, we will address the most frequently asked questions and answers about Kaspa.

• What is Kaspa, and how is it different from other blockchains?: Kaspa is a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain project developed with a focus on scalability and speed. Its key difference is that it processes blocks on a graph structure called blockDAG instead of a chain; this allows multiple blocks to be confirmed simultaneously, making the network operate much faster. This allows Kaspa to support high transaction throughput without sacrificing decentralization, unlike traditional blockchains like Bitcoin, and confirms transactions almost instantly.
• What is the GHOSTDAG protocol?: GHOSTDAG is the name of the proprietary consensus protocol used by Kaspa. Standing for "Greedy Heaviest Observed Subtree Directed Acyclic Graph," this protocol allows multiple blocks to be created simultaneously and orders these blocks on a directed acyclic graph (DAG). In short, GhostDAG generalizes the classic "chain" model by establishing a ranking and voting mechanism between parallel blocks, allowing the network to both generate blocks very quickly and achieve secure consensus.
• How does Kaspa mining work?: To mine Kaspa, you first need computer hardware—preferably a powerful GPU (graphics card). Because Kaspa uses a PoW algorithm called kHeavyHash, it can be mined efficiently with standard GPUs and is currently resistant to ASIC devices. To mine, you first create a wallet, then use a mining software (miner) to connect your GPU's computing power to the Kaspa network. You can mine solo or join a mining pool to earn more regular rewards.
• Is Kaspa's supply limited?: Yes, Kaspa's maximum supply is limited. The total maximum supply is set at 28.7 billion KAS, and new Kaspa coins will continue to be mined until this amount is reached. Kaspa's reward mechanism has an issuance schedule that halves annually (with monthly gradual decreases), meaning that the amount of new KAS in circulation will decrease over time, and the total supply will remain constant in the long term.
• Who developed Kaspa?: Kaspa is a project started by Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky. However, development is not limited to a single person or company; as Kaspa is a completely open-source project, developers from all over the world contribute. The project's governance is also decentralized – it has a decentralized development model driven by the Kaspa Foundation and the community; meaning Kaspa is an ecosystem driven by the collaborative efforts of its community members.
• How low are transaction fees on Kaspa?: The Kaspa network offers very low transaction fees thanks to its high efficiency. The fee for a standard Kaspa transfer is typically under a penny, meaning it's negligible (unless network congestion increases dramatically). This low fee policy makes Kaspa ideal for small payments or applications requiring frequent transactions.

To learn more about Kaspa's high-speed and decentralized architecture, stay tuned for the JR Kripto guide series.