Kaspa is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency, and the question of what Kaspa is comes down to one design choice: its network keeps parallel blocks instead of discarding them. The KAS token is the native asset of this Layer 1 network, which launched on 7 November 2021 as a fair launch.
Core technology and blockchain architecture
Most proof-of-work chains, such as Bitcoin, order blocks in a single line and discard blocks that lose the race to be first. Kaspa instead uses a blockDAG (block directed acyclic graph). Its consensus protocol, GHOSTDAG, orders blocks so that the blocks created in parallel still contribute to consensus. The protocol is described in a paper published at the ACM AFT '21 conference, which states that it "generalizes Nakamoto's blockchain to a direct acyclic graph of blocks (blockDAG)" (ACM DL).
The ledger uses a UTXO model. Kaspalytics describes KAS as "UTXO-based - there is no EVM and no global account state," with programmability built from UTXO-native primitives (Kaspalytics). Mining uses the kHeavyHash algorithm, which the Kaspa team describes as "a modified form of the 'optical-miner' ready HeavyHash algorithm" (Kaspa).
Block rate and the Crescendo upgrade
Kaspa launched at 1 block per second. The Crescendo hard fork activated on mainnet on 5 May 2025 and raised the rate to 10 blocks per second (Kaspalytics Crescendo). Kaspalytics reports that the GHOSTDAG k parameter rose from 18 to 124, and that finality depth fell from about 24 hours to about 12 hours (432,000 blocks). Emission was unchanged because the per-second reward does not depend on block rate (Kaspanotes).
Programmability: Toccata and covenants
The Toccata hard fork activated on mainnet on 30 June 2026 at DAA score 474,165,565. It added native Layer 1 covenant programming and opcodes for verifying zero-knowledge proofs on L1 (Kaspa Docs; KIP-16 and KIP-17 via Kaspalytics). KIP-20 adds an optional covenant ID on outputs that consensus tracks in the UTXO set (KIP-20). Kaspa's own documentation states that its developer tooling is still early (Kaspa Build).
Primary use cases and real-world applications
The most direct use of KAS is as a transferable native asset on a fast, proof-of-work settlement network. Its block rate and confirmation design are aimed at value transfer, and miners secure that transfer through hashing.
Programmability is the newer use case. Kasplex describes itself as "the first Based-Rollup Layer 2 for Kaspa," with a zkEVM and the KRC-20 token standard, and reports 2,350+ tokens deployed on its homepage (Kasplex). Igra Network launched a public mainnet on 19 March 2026 as an EVM-compatible execution layer. Its press release claims more than 3,000 transactions per second, a figure that comes from the press release and has not been independently measured (Chainwire).
Who is behind Kaspa and where is it based?
Founders and key developers
Yonatan Sompolinsky is the founder. He co-invented the GHOSTDAG protocol with his PhD advisor, Professor Aviv Zohar, and co-founded DAGLabs (Kaspa Contributors; Forbes). Michael Sutton is a core developer who co-authored the DAGKnight paper with Sompolinsky and is credited with leading the Rust rewrite of the node software (Wikipedia). Shai Wyborski co-authored the GHOSTDAG paper, but Sutton has publicly stated that Wyborski is not part of Kaspa core (Michael Sutton on X). Other publicly identified contributors include Mike Zak, Elichai Turkel, Ori Newman and Anton Yemelyanov (Kaspa WIKI). The team is publicly identified and is not anonymous.
Founding year and project history
Sources disagree on when DAGLabs was founded. Blockworks and Wikipedia say 2018, while LinkedIn, PitchBook and Tracxn say 2017 (Blockworks; LinkedIn). DAGLabs raised approximately $8,000,000, led by Polychain Capital, with Accomplice and Genesis Mining also investing (Kaspa WIKI, Prehistory).
Sompolinsky published the launch plan on 21 September 2021. Mainnet launched on 7 November 2021, and the genesis block was produced on 8 November 2021 (Kaspa; Messari). By mid-2021, DAGLabs and Polychain had agreed to stop funding development and to describe the project as community-owned, and both waived intellectual property rights (Blockworks).
Country and legal entities
Sources place DAGLabs in Tel Aviv, Israel (Tracxn). Sources do not confirm a headquarters or operating country for the Kaspa protocol itself. The DAGLabs entity is listed by Crunchbase as "DAGlabs Ltd.," a for-profit company, and PitchBook lists it as out of business (Crunchbase; PitchBook).
Blockworks states that the core protocol has no central legal entity, no foundation controlling the codebase, and no formal on-chain governance. Upgrades and funding decisions go through community discussion and Discord votes, and a 2-of-4 Dev Fund multisig is the primary administrative control (Blockworks). Related organizations include the Kaspa Ecosystem Foundation, announced in March 2024, whose jurisdiction is not public in the sources reviewed, and the Kaspa Industrial Initiative Foundation, a Dutch foundation focused on institutional adoption (BitcoinTalk; Blockworks).
Tokenomics
Kaspa had no premine, no pre-sale and no pre-allocation, and zero tokens were distributed at launch outside open mining (Blockworks).
The CoinStats market snapshot, captured 1 November 2026 at 01:53 UTC, shows:
- Price: $0.03269
- 24h change: -1.27%
- Market cap: $908.25M (rank #102)
- 24h volume: $10.19M
- Circulating supply: 27,784,234,443 KAS
- Total supply: 27,786,579,636 KAS
- All-time high: $0.2074, with the current price 84.24% below it
Blockworks reports a maximum supply of 28,704,026,601 KAS (Blockworks).
Issuance follows two phases. The pre-deflationary phase ran from 7 November 2021 to 8 May 2022, with rewards initially random at 1 to 1,000 KAS per block, then set to 500 KAS per second (Medium). The chromatic phase began on 8 May 2022 at 440 KAS per second. Each month the reward is multiplied by (1/2)^(1/12), which reduces it by about 5.6% per month and halves it once per year (Kaspa WIKI). One sompi equals 10⁻⁸ KAS (HelloKaspa).
Sources disagree on when emission ends. Kaspalytics says the schedule is fully emitted around 2057, while Blockworks projects that the remaining supply will be mined through approximately 2037 (Kaspalytics; Blockworks).
Consensus mechanism and network security model
Kaspa is secured by proof-of-work, and GHOSTDAG determines the order of blocks so that honest nodes agree on one total order (IACR ePrint 2018/104). The project describes GHOSTDAG as solving the blockchain trilemma for proof-of-work, but this is the project's own claim (Kaspa Features).
Mining is dominated by ASICs. The Kaspa WIKI states that the network is "currently only mineable with ASICs" and that GPU and CPU mining now run at a loss (Kaspa WIKI). Finality is reported as roughly 12 hours after Crescendo, with a merge depth bound of 36,000 blocks, or about one hour (Kaspalytics).
Key partnerships and ecosystem integrations
The sources did not identify formal institutional partnerships beyond the ecosystem projects. The main integrations are Kasplex, which runs the Based-Rollup Layer 2 and the KRC-20 standard, and Igra Network, which runs the EVM execution layer (Kaspa WIKI). A KCC-20 token standard entered its "Last Call" review stage on 7 October 2026, which is not final approval (Kaspa News).
Competitive advantages and unique value proposition
Kaspa's differentiation is its consensus model. Rather than accepting throughput limits from a single chain, it accepts parallel blocks and orders them, which allows a 10 block-per-second rate under proof-of-work. Its fair launch, with no premine or pre-sale, is also a distinguishing feature in its tokenomics. The Rust node implementation, which Crescendo depended on according to the Kaspa site, is the production node after the Go repository was deprecated (Kaspa Lore; CoinYQ).
Current development activity and roadmap
Crescendo (May 2025) and Toccata (June 2026) are shipped. The most recent node release in the sources is v2.1.0, released 22 September, which the Kaspa Explained status page reports improves node sync and fixes network-handling and mining-bridge security issues (Kaspa Explained).
DAGKnight, the successor protocol designed to be parameterless and tolerant of attackers with up to 50% of hashrate, is not live. KIP-2 remains a proposal, and GHOSTDAG still runs mainnet consensus (Kaspa Explained). A branch holds 129 commits not yet merged into main, according to an October 2026 talk (Kaspa News). A social media post from Kaspa Hub, citing Sutton, targets DAGKnight for late Q4 2026 or early Q1 2027, but this is unconfirmed by a primary Kaspa source (X). Cointribune reports a gradual climb to 100 blocks per second targeted for 2027 (Cointribune).