Today marks the third anniversary of Kaspa, and while three years marks a significant achievement - the desire to create something like Kaspa has been a pursuit for decades (and perhaps a century). The pursuit in question was a decentralized, digital, stateless money that is hard (disinflationary), scalable, and divisible without the reliance on a single entity or a group of a few. It all started with the Cypherpunks merging previous cryptographic achievements, distributed systems theories, and Austrian economics. Their pursuit was in retaliation of the modern-day fiat system, decreasing the purchasing power and only allowing a few to play the permissioned money game. A few cypherpunks attempted to create this form of money.

It started with Adam Back's Hashcash, which created a proof-of-work hashing system by introducing randomness compared to Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor's previous proof-of-work system. Next came Nick Szabo's Bit Gold, which introduced the concept of unforgeable costliness into a digital gold-like standard. Thereafter, Wei Dai introduced B-money, and Hal Finney launched Reusable Proof-of-Work (RPOW). These digital money forms, however, lacked a truly decentralized consensus mechanism.

Satoshi Nakamoto resolved this issue by introducing Nakamoto consensus and merging it with Adam Back's hashing system, Nick Szabo's concept of digital gold, High-Tech Hayekian/Extropian philosophy, Merkle trees, public key cryptography (particularly Elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange cryptography), and blockchain innovations created by Scott Stornetta. The result was Bitcoin. It seemed like the pursuit of a digital, decentralized, stateless form of money was finally realized, and the world could fully embrace a Belle Époque golden age society. 

Unfortunately, this was not and continues to not be the case with Bitcoin. Nakamoto consensus is too slow and expensive, so decentralization and scalability are at risk. Without a fast consensus protocol, mining becomes more and more centralized, and self-custody becomes harder and harder to maintain. We are seeing this now with a few mining pools controlling most of Bitcoin's hash power and Coinbase and Blackrock controlling most of Bitcoin's custody services - creating once again a system that requires the trust of a few. 

Moreover, Bitcoin will never be able to resolve its scalability issue with its current consensus model. Why? Because increasing block size and confirmation times in a blockchain system decreases security and increases the cost of running a node. Bitcoin must, therefore, remain slow, requiring a layer 2 solution. 

However, it's impossible to develop a layer 2 for Bitcoin to function as a medium of exchange. You would need to change the properties and function of proof-of-work consensus fundamentally. You would need to make proof-of-work fast without compromising on security and decentralization. The Lightning Network, for example, requires the trust of centralized third-party entities to handle payment channels. Essentially, you would need to solve the blockchain trilemma - that is, to create a base settlement layer that achieves security, decentralization, and scalability. 

Kaspa has done this—i.e., it has solved the blockchain trilemma and, therefore, achieved the world's first perfect form of money. KAS can function as a store of value, a unit of account, and a medium of exchange. It can also process transactions at speeds that match fiat. 

The Cypherpunk dream wasn't actualized by Bitcoin, but instead, by Kaspa.

Year One Major Accomplishments

The Kaspa Testnet was officially launched in April 2021, which served as a controlled environment for developers to experiment and enhance its core protocol and test the GHOSTDAG consensus model's performance via Kaspad, Kaspa's reference full node implementation initially written in Go (Golang). A week after its deployment, Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky tweeted a visualization of the block confirmations, showing the DAG in action. Under the tweet, one user was so impressed they replied, "Ah, this is not possible, probably some kind of scam."

It was not a scam—the Kaspa mainnet launched on November 7, 2021, exactly three years ago today, as announced in Discord.

Within one week, Kaspa reached a hash rate of 1 Ghas/s with over 1300 active miners. By early December 2021, Kaspa hit a hash rate of 150 GH/s.

Dr. Sompolinsky introduced the official launch proposal for Kaspa, outlining plans to initiate it in 'gamenet mode'—a research-focused, experimental network. The gamenet mode was first suggested in a Medium article Sompolinksy published on September 21, 2021, titled, Kaspa launch plan (proposal). He aimed to build a community of developers and researchers around Kaspa, encouraging innovation while gradually transitioning to mainnet once the user base and hash rate grew. Initially, Sompolinsky envisioned Kaspa as a suitable testing ground for Layer-2 networks, with a key focus on developing an EVM bridge to serve as a DeFi base layer. The proposal's second phase, termed 'Crypto Economics Phase 2,' aimed to transition Kaspa from experimental gamenet mode to a stable monetary policy featuring a regulated supply and the potential for trading on exchanges.

KAS' monetary policy includes a halving emissions schedule. This does not mean the supply is halved, as there is no burning mechanism; instead, the number of KAS mined is halved. The supply is capped at 28.7 billion, and this cap will never change. Emissions decrease geometrically over time based on the 12-note music scale, known as the chromatic phase. This policy was activated on May 7, 2022, with a block reward of 440 KAS.

The block reward is halved once per year, incrementally: every month, the block reward is reduced by a factor of (1/2)^(1/12). The ratio of block rewards in consecutive months is the same ratio of frequencies of two consecutive semitones in a tempered chromatic scale. The initial block reward is the frequency of the note A4, and every averaged year is hence called an octave.

Once emissions have been finalized, miners will no longer be able to mine KAS; instead, they will earn transaction fees for block production.

Shai Deshe Wyborski further clarified additional monetary logistics on Discord,

Moreover, it’s important to note that Kaspa was fair-launched: No ICO — No vesting phase — No premine. Moreover, the coin was not distributed to any entity, person, or persons. To obtain KAS, entities or persons must either: (1) mine KAS, (2) buy KAS from an exchange, (3) send or receive KAS from an entity or persons through the Kaspa network (i.e., blockdag). 

GHOSTDAG

The original Kaspa consensus protocol, GHOSTDAG, was first introduced in a foundational paper titled PHANTOM GHOSTDAG: a scalable generalization of Nakamoto consensus, published November 10, 2021, by Dr. Yonatan Sompolinksy, Shai Wyborski, and Aviv Zohar. 

This protocol significantly enhances previous consensus methods, as it allows blocks to be created rapidly and in parallel without risking chain splits, which traditionally compromise network security and consensus. The GHOSTDAG (Greedy Heaviest Observed Sub-Tree Directed Acyclic Graph) model is based on research by Yonatan Sompolinsky and others, aiming to enable high throughput and low-latency transactions while maintaining decentralization and security via proof-of-work. GHOSTDAG was a breakthrough in distributed systems theory as it solved the blockchain trilemma—a feat over Bitcoin and Ethereum. Moreover, GHOSTDAG solved the money trilemma, making money hard, fast, and divisible for the first time in history.

DAGKNIGHT

Later that year, Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky and Michael Sutton unveiled the DAGKNIGHT Protocol at the CESC22 Berkley conference (Crypto Economics Security Conference) on October 31, 2022. (The full paper is available here.) DAGKnight solves the pruning problem in consensus protocols and removes the security constraints on throughput. Core developer Shai Wyborski described DAGKnight as "a PoW consensus algorithm which has no speed limitations beyond hardware, suitable for smart contracts, AND scales itself as network latency is improved."

DAGKNIGHT was an even bigger breakthrough in distributed system theory. It introduced partial synchronicity in a proof-of-work system, a feat once deemed impossible by previous distributed systems academia. This achievement allows for greater security during partitions and faster speeds, with 100 blocks per second.

Exchange Listings

In April 2022, the Kaspa community started a Community Funding Pool to raise money toward exchange listings. Kaspa had its first exchange listing on May 24, 2022 on txbit exchange. Within the first year, Kaspa also was  listed on EXBITRON, TradeOgre, Cryptex24, and ViteX. A major turning point occurred later that year in September 2022, when Kaspa was listed on the prominent global exchange, MEXC. Kaspa was later listed in liquidity pools, such as WoolyPooly in August 2022.

Official Kaspa Branding

In May of 2022, Kaspa unveiled its new branding - the current logo and color palette that we are accustomed to and love. The Kaspa logo is based on The Hebrew noun כֶּסֶף (kesef, pronounced KESS-eff), which is the Biblical Hebrew word for both "silver" and "money." The relationship between the two words is easy to understand, as one of the earliest forms of "money" was weighed bags of silver. A version of the word Kesef in Old Testament scriptures can be read as "Kaspa."

The rebrand was led by a Kaspa community member, Rhubarbian, and his design firm, Rhubarb Media around the end of February 2022 and in June, 2022. Rhubarbian and the team launched key public communication channels , which helped lay the foundation for Kaspa's identity. This included seeding initiatives such as the Kaspa Ambassador Program, a project to identify passionate community leaders who could drive engagement and support the project's growth. This grassroots strategy helped connect early adopters, increase visibility, and position Kaspa as a leading solution for decentralized, high-performance networks.

Began Rust Code Rewrite

In July 2022, core developer Michael Sutton proposed rewriting the Kaspa codebase from GoLang (Go) via Kaspad to Rust via Rusty Kaspa. Rust, known for its performance optimization, would enable Kaspa to achieve higher blocks per second (BPS) and transactions per second (TPS) compared to Go. The transition to Rust would also simplify and modularize the codebase, with improved documentation to make it more accessible and attractive to developers. This was a significant endeavor, but by September 2022, the team had successfully implemented Rust for consensus block validation.

For more information about Rusty Kaspa and the Rust code rewrite, please see our articles, Rusty Kaspa: Pioneering Innovation in Blockchain with Rust and Rusty Kaspa FAQs.

Kaspa Community Growth

By June of 2022, Kaspa was one of the top 3 gainers on Coin Market Cap, with over 1,000 followers on X) and reaching hash rates of over 10 Th/s. By August 2024, Kaspa reached a hash rate of 50 TH/s, over 800 times the original 60 Mhas/s. By August 2022, just nine months post-launch, Kaspa had over 1.5B USD in volume and over 10M+ daily visits. By September 2022, Kaspa had become a trending asset on CoinGecko. Also in September, Kaspa mining became, and the kHeavyHash was determined to be more profitable to mine than ETC, according to WhatToMine. 

Decentralized Integrations

Around the same time, Kaspa partnered with Flux, a decentralized cloud network comprising over 13,500 nodes spread across 78 countries. Similar to Kaspa, Flux emphasizes decentralization and operates a community-driven infrastructure. The widespread presence of Flux nodes focuses on redundancy, ensuring that the network remains operational at all times. This collaboration enables Kaspa to enhance its decentralization efforts further while leveraging the reliability of Flux's node infrastructure.

Year Two Major Accomplishments

In its second year, the Kaspa network achieved remarkable technical milestones, further enhancing its scalability, security, and user accessibility through key updates and innovations. Kaspa started out its second year by achieving speeds of 1 block-per-second (BPS). In terms of mining, Kaspa reached a hash rate of 0.5 PH/s in November 2022.

Some of the most pivotal work in the Kaspa community came from the continued work on the Rust code rewrite, which was intended to improve transaction speed, lower hardware requirements, and present new opportunities for developers. By November 2022, the testnet was showing roughly a 30x increase in speed of processing. This was due to the efficiency in Rust and the new design, which allowed blocks to be processed concurrently in different validation stages. By March 2023, developer Michael Sutton had completed the coding for the Genesis block - the block of the Block-DAG, which serves as the public transaction ledger for the main network. The following month, the Alpha release for the testnet and mainnet was launched, with the Beta and stable releases to follow after community testing. Shortly afterward, in May 2023, the "On-the-Fly Header Pruning" upgrade was released, eliminating delays caused when processing pruning in a linear, not parallel fashion. In June of 2023, the Kaspa testnet witnessed the groundbreaking achievement of 10 BPS—the higher the BPS, the faster the transaction speed!

Also released in early 2023, Kaspa Node Monitor, developed by imalfect, allows users to track their Kaspa Node's performance easily. It provides key metrics like block count, header count, peer count, DAA score, node sync status, and hardware details such as CPU model, RAM usage, and system load (which can be disabled). Available on GitHub with setup instructions, it's a valuable tool for Kaspa node operators to monitor network health.

Moreover, the Kaspa BlockDAG Integration Guide was officially released in March 2023. It provides developers and businesses with comprehensive resources to integrate Kaspa's high-performance Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) technology into their applications and systems.

Wrapped KAS

In July 2023, Kaspa reached a significant milestone with the debut of wrapped Kaspa (wKAS) on the Chainge Finance platform. Wrapped Kaspa bridges the Ethereum network, enabling Kaspa holders to use their tokens across decentralized applications (dApps) on Ethereum. By converting KAS to wKAS, users can participate in Ethereum-based DeFi (decentralized finance) ecosystems, enhancing liquidity and utility for the Kaspa network. This integration notably expands Kaspa's accessibility and interoperability. 

Making Mining History

An important development in Kaspa mining during its second year was the introduction of ASIC miners (application-specific integrated circuit), with IceRiver leading the way in debuting this hardware. These specialized miners significantly improved the hashrate and efficiency of Kaspa's proof-of-work algorithm. Additionally, the user-friendly design of these ASIC miners allowed retail users to easily participate in Kaspa mining, contributing to the decentralization and growth of the network.

Moreover, Bitmain announced the sale of the KS3 Kaspa miner, breaking Kaspa X feeds and ensuring further trust in Kaspa’s security. 

Throughout the year, Kaspa achieved several key advancements in mining support by partnering with major mining pools. Notably, the largest Bitcoin mining pool, ANTPOOL, launched a dedicated Kaspa mining pool in September 2023. Additionally, Liquid Mining launched a cloud mining app, enhancing users' accessibility. Other pools, including  f2Pool, ViaBTC, Poolin, and Hiveon, also integrated with Kaspa, strengthening its mining infrastructure and contributing to the network's decentralization and security. 

Kaspa Wallets

In its second year, Kaspa made significant progress by developing a mobile application that expanded its reach by tapping into a mobile-only audience. The core developers introduced Kaspium, a non-custodial mobile wallet available for both iOS and Android. This wallet supports multiple wallets, transaction history, address management, and biometric authentication and is compatible with 24-word secret phrases from the Kaspad CLI wallet. To further enhance accessibility, the Kaspa community raised funds to make the Kaspium wallet available in multiple languages. Additionally, the core team secured capital to develop a browser extension wallet to integrate Kaspa into web applications.  

As Kaspa's popularity grew, so did the demand for cold storage solutions. The community rallied to partner with hardware wallet providers Tangem and OneKey, initiating a campaign to meet preorder requirements for integration. Tangem, the first wallet, offers a credit card-like design with an NFC chip, making it portable and secure. To learn more about the Tangem wallet, please see our article An Interview with Tangem: Revolutionizing Cold Storage for Kaspa. The OneKey wallet provides open-source code for transparency and security. The Kaspa community also raised over 1 million USD to fund the development of a Kaspa Ledger application. These collaborative efforts highlight the dedication of the Kaspa community to enhance security options for all users while fostering integrations that support Kaspa's decentralized goals. 

To learn more about Kaspa-compatible wallets, including the options mentioned above, please see KASmedia's Wallet Guide for Hot and Cold KAS Storage. 

New Integrations and Exchange Listings

Kaspa made significant progress in ensuring that KAS is accepted as a payment method through integrations with CryptocurrencyCheckout, CoinPal, and NOWPayments. These collaborations allow the KAS token to be used for payments at both online and physical retailers globally. These platforms integrate with several popular online platforms, including WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, and WordPress. Additionally, it can be integrated into social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, Facebook, and Twitter to facilitate donations. CoinPal also allows users to spend their crypto via credit card. These integrations ensure that merchants worldwide can process KAS payments seamlessly. One notable example of a brick-and-mortar store accepting KAS through one of the above-mentioned platforms is Brand 425 Coffee in Texas, which proudly displays a "Kaspa Accepted Here" button on its website.

Over 75 locations worldwide currently accept KAS as a payment method. To explore a list of these establishments, please visit the All Listings page on the Kaspa website. 

Moreover, Kaspa experienced a notable surge in exchange listings this year, with a steady stream of announcements. Some of the key listings include CoinEx, XeggeX, Chainge Finance, DigiFinex, Gate.io, HotBit, ByDFi,BitGet, LBank Exchange, Uphold, KuCoin, StealthX , SimpleSwap, RocketX, BitPanda, CoinEx, BitMart, ByBit, CoinRabbit, BTSE, and Zelcore. 

Community Involvement

The Kaspa community consistently collaborates in remarkable ways, regularly raising funds to support their shared goals through a decentralized governance model. In December 2022, the community successfully raised in just 12 days to fund the development and implementation of the DAGKnight Protocol and its API support. Another crowdfunding initiative led by the Kaspa community aimed to raise 1M KAS to translate Kaspa materials into multiple languages, ensuring that Kaspa resources are accessible to individuals worldwide.

Additionally, the community raised $750,000 within a week to fund the Community Marketing Fund, which allocated resources toward marketing designs and campaigns led by community member @Rhubarbarian. One such campaign, Kaspa's Grassroots and Organic Marketing (GRO), features a bottom-up approach.

Moreover, the Kaspa community excels at recognizing and supporting its developers. The community initiated the Kaspa Community Developer Crowdfund to give back, raising funds to show appreciation for the developers who worked diligently to secure listing integrations. 

The Kaspa Ambassadors program grew to include at least thirty ambassadors worldwide. These prominent community members are dedicated to introducing others to Kaspa's technology and often go the extra mile to promote the project. To support their efforts, Kaspa provides a range of branded resources, including Battle Cards (currently translated into twenty languages), banners, stickers, business cards, presentation decks, and decals, among others. 

Other community efforts include the Official Kaspa Merch Store, which was launched and now offers items for purchase. A fun game called Kaspa City was developed to teach users about the Kaspa network through interactive gameplay. By the end of 2023, the Kaspa community had grown to over 100,000 followers on X, an important milestone in its outreach and engagement.

The Kaspa community is was passionate about Kaspa that multiple books have been written about It. The first came in Kaspa's second year, The Book of Kaspa, written by developer Nathaniel Crowningsheild, better known as Bubblegum Lightening.

Kaspa Around the World

Due to the community's rapid growth, the Kaspa community attended and hosted numerous cryptocurrency events worldwide to showcase its innovative technology.  From November 2022 - November 2023, Kaspa has attended events in Albania, Australia, Korea, Uganda, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Turkey, France, USA, and Canada, further expanding its global reach. Moreover, we saw a cemented Kaspa's expansion in Africa, as represented by Kaspa Africa, who continue to hold events to educate blockdag technology. 

Kaspa’s Year Three: Nov 2023- Nov 2024

An exciting milestone in the Rusty Kaspa saga emerged in January 2024 with the second unveiling of the public testnet, TN11. This marked the first time a proof-of-work (PoW) network achieved a speed of 10 BPS (blocks per second). Just a few months later, on May 13, 2024, the Rusty Kaspa (version 0.14.1) went live, and by May 15, 2024, the hash rate majority was on Rusty Kaspa nodes. The Rusty Kaspa codebase made Kaspa more efficient, scalable, and fast. Due to the low hardware requirements, users can run a Rusty Kaspa node on mobile devices. In August 2024, after the Kasplex beta launch, the Kaspa code was updated to account for dynamic and evolving fee markets due to their new RBF and FeeEstimate APIs.

Crescendo

In August of 2024, Michael Sutton unveiled the Crescendo Hard Fork, which is focused on greatly increasing the network's block rate from 1 BPS (block-per-second) to 10 BPS. The process will be implemented in multiple phases, starting with testnet stabilization and performance optimizations. The goal is to enhance network decentralization while lowering hardware requirements. The testnet, TN11, has been running smoothly since January 2024, and bottlenecks have been identified. According to a post from Sutton, the next phase of implementation towards the hard fork is to compute GHOSTDAG on higher levels while establishing a pruning proof. It will only be a matter of time before the Crescendo update is complete with node spec requirements set and configured for 10 BPS. 

KRC20-Kasplex and Kaspa Foundations

Kasplex was the first protocol for the Kaspa ecosystem. It created the KRC20 Token Standard, through its open-source solution that utilizes the data insertion protocol, an open-source indexer, data availability, and its unique API’s. KRC20 tokens are fungible tokens, similar to ERC20 tokens on Ethereum. This standard allows users to mint and deploy their own tokens. Since deployment (as of November 6, 2024), there have been roughly 98M KAS tokens paid in gas fees to process roughly 78M transactions, of roughly 1,300 tokens deployed. To learn more about KRC20 tokens, please see our article, Introducing Kasplex and its Launch: Series One.

Additionally, key Kaspa foundations were launched, including the Kaspa Ecosystem Foundation (KEF) and the Kaspa Japan Ecosystem Association (KJEA). Both foundations were designed to fund research grants, development on Kaspa, startup incubation, and merchant integrations. The KEF foundation, in particular,  was created by Coinpal, KASmedia, and Rhubarb Media with seed funding from ICERIVER Venture and OKX Ventures.

Marathon Digital Holdings Mines Kaspa

In June 2024, Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) announced that it had begun mining Kaspa in September 2023. As of June 2024, the company had mined approximately 93 million KAS, valued at around $15 million. This marks a significant development, as Marathon is one of the few publicly traded companies on NASDAQ to engage in cryptocurrency mining, adding Kaspa as its second mined cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. 

Kaspa Kii and Green Energy

Launched to promote integrating Kaspa revolutionary BlockDAG technology into the industrial and energy sectors, Kaspa Industrial Initiative (Kii) launched on July 17, 2024, by the powerhouse team behind the Desert Industrial Initiative (Dii). Kaspa Kii is working to develop universal documentation and standards for integrating data to the BlockDAG, and several pilot programs are showing how Kaspa technology can be utilized. They also provide support, education, and resources for startups. This year, they held a Kaspa in Enterprise conference in Dublin, Ireland, where they unveiled several new developments to the Kaspa ecosystem, including the GigaWatt stablecoin, a solution to cross-border payments, a solution to streamline parametric insurance, and much more. A full list of all Kaspa Kii developments is shown below.

Kaspa World Tour

Kaspa significantly expanded its global presence with an extensive world tour, hosting numerous Kaspa Fam meetups in cities worldwide. These events allowed the community to connect, share knowledge, and celebrate Kaspa's growth, bringing the network's innovation directly to its expanding international audience. 

The Kaspa team also attended several major conferences, including the Hong Kong Web 3 Festival. After the conference,Kaspa was represented in panel discussions and had over 200 registered attendees for the Kaspa Fam Meetup. Other conferences that had a Kaspa presence include Paris Blockchain Week, Token2049 Dubai, Next Block Expo in Poland, Consensus 2024, Bitmain's WDMS 2024 in Las Vegas, Mining Disrupt in Miami, Token2049 Singapore, WebX Asia, Kaspa in Enterprise in Dublin, IIT Mumbai, and the Australian Crypto Convention. Kaspa also won the World Digital Mining Summit 2024 (WDMS) PoW Ecosystem Potential Award in March 2024.

In addition to conferences, Kaspa hosted several meetups in Israel, Uganda, Japan, Austria, and NYC. The community also enjoyed some fun events like a kiteboarding meetup in Vietnam and the IronWeb case competition, where students in France worked with KAS currency as the project payment system to create innovative solutions.

Kaspa Books and Articles

This year, Kaspa gained substantial media attention, signaling its growth and community enthusiasm. Momentum kicked off from  previous Head of Listings Research at Binance US, Nicholas Sismil’s 2023 article, How to Solve the Blockchain Trilemma: A BlockDAG and Nakamoto Consensus Friendship | by Nicholas Sismil | Medium, and continued co-founding KASmedia.com, with Kaspa’s Head of Business Development, Chris Wolf. 

Multiple books also debuted, including Mickey Maler’s Kaspa: From Ghost to Knight, off to heal the blockchain's plight, earning 5-star reviews on Amazon. Additionally, core developer, Shai Wyborski, is working on Understanding GHOSTDAG, which is being incrementally released on KASmedia. 

In terms of social media growth, the official Kaspa X.com (formerly Twitter) account has now amassed over 200,000 followers, and a Kaspa-themed talk held (with community members including Nicholas Sismil, Chris Wolf, Khris Kang, and Ray from ICERIVER) on the Binance Live platform became the most-viewed (85.1k views) episodes in Binance Live’s history. 

Marketing and More Exchange Listings

As the Kaspa community expanded, so did its marketing efforts. A standout achievement was the launch of the Rock the Kaspa news show, providing monthly updates on the Kapsa ecosystem. The marketing campaign also supported the Kaspa Fam meetups globally and introduced the KASbots NFT collection, featuring a playful computer. The Community Marketing Fund (CMF) also played a key role in promoting the Kaspa Ecosystem Fund (CEF) initiatives.  The community again came together and raised over 98k KAS in May of 2024 to continue the Community Marketing Fund (CMF). Another key marketing success came from the revamped global Kaspa Ambassador Program, known as KAP 2.0, led by ambassadors Chris, Luke, and Julien, who formed an advisory team to manage and lead the ambassadors. KAP is now led by Luke.

Kaspa continued its strong momentum in year three by increasing its exchange presence. New listings included platforms such as Coinstash Australia, Caleb & Brown, Bitrue, AltCoinTrader South Africa, GateTR, CoinStore, Travala, Topper, CryptoWallet, Phemex, CoinW, Pionex, Chainge, Bitvavo, Houdini, and LetsExchange. In addition to expanding across exchanges, Binance introduced USDⓈ-M KAS perpetual contracts, allowing up to 50X leverage. 

A standout achievement was Kaspa becoming the top-traded asset on Uphold for three consecutive weeks.

Wallets, Integration, and Accessibility

The Kaspa ecosystem is steadily expanding to enhance accessibility and convenience for users worldwide. Kaspa’s community-focused design drives Rusty Kaspa (RK), with notable contributions from developer Aspect, who developed KDX and now leads KNG and WASM integrations. The new KNG platform, an advanced successor to KDX, combines comprehensive node configurations, real-time metrics, and visualizations, enhancing network accessibility for users and developers. The WASM SDK further empowers ecosystem developers by providing Rust modules as Javascript and Typescript APIs, simplifying wallet interfaces, cryptographic functions, and node management. Together, these tools lower technical barriers and foster a more innovative, decentralized Kaspa ecosystem.

Kaspa contributor Aspect also created the user-friendly web wallet available at https://wallet.kaspanet.io/, making sending and receiving payments easy. In November 2023, the first browser to incorporate Kaspa was Carbon, a decentralized web three browser incorporating an adblocker, VPN, and crypto wallet. 

Platform integrations now enable users to book flights, hotels, and other travel activities using the Travela platform, which integrated Kaspa in January 2024. Additionally, the Kaspa community gained another valuable resource with Kaspa to the Onramp Money app, allowing users to purchase KAS using their local currency in countries such as India, Turkey, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Nigeria, Kenya, Europe, UK, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc.

By the end of 2023, wrapped Kaspa (wKAS) had expanded its compatibility to include the Polygon and BNB networks, further enhancing Kaspa’s interoperability and broadening its access to a wider range of DeFi applications. 

What to Expect in Years to Come

Some might wonder, though, why not use proof-of-stake technologies such as Ethereum or Solona as a payment system? 

The reason is that proof-of-work produces a commodity monetary premium, whereas proof-of-stake produces an equity monetary premium. Within proof-of-work, there is no human form of governance securing the system; it is secured by hash power via energy and capital expenditures, and from that, it produces a commodity monetary premium. On the other hand, proof-of-stake is secured and governed by a token it creates - much like holders of traditional equity, who have a governing force in the management of a company, so too do token holders have a governing force of a proof-of-stake system. 

So, in this sense, proof-of-stake tokens are a new form of equities. And because of this, you don't have decentralized finance yet. You have equities secured by equities rather than by actual money. 

With Kaspa, however, smart contracts and what is meant to be decentralized finance will be solidified and grounded in a perfect form of money. This merges the best of both worlds: virtual machines and real money. A world where anything is possible, unbounded by physics, and a world based on sound principles governed by physics - all in one. 

This is coming next: smart contracts on Kaspa. 

Moreover, Kaspa’s consensus protocol, GHOSTDAG, will eventually be hard forked to DAGKNIGHT. 

Lastly, we expect real-world adoption. For example, we believe Kaspa will revolutionize the green energy sector by tapping into green hydrogen and renewables in the Middle East and North African desert regions and building industries for Refi (i.e., tokenized carbon credits and RWAs). Kaspa will show that proof-of-work will not only be fast but also green.