The Kaspa Crescendo hard fork is here! Crescendo a major network upgrade designed to enhance Kaspa’s scalability and performance significantly. Scheduled to activate on May 5, 2025, at DAA Score 110,165,000, Crescendo will increase the block rate from 1 to 10 blocks per second (BPS). This tenfold boost in throughput aims to improve transaction speed, network responsiveness, and overall capacity, laying the groundwork for future features like smart contracts and Layer 2 integration.

Michael Sutton, a core developer, emphasized the meticulous effort behind this upgrade, stating:

“Dunno how I got into this but I have my blood, sweat & tears invested in this version’s effort. Maturing with Kaspa towards fee market dynamics is an exciting milestone in the journey.” 

In anticipation for Crescendo, Sutton tweeted:

“72 hours to a big crescendo moment in permissionless distributed systems, showing that a multi-leader consensus real-world system can achieve block times shorter than global internet round-trip time (RTT) without artificially suppressing the P2P network size or assuming proximity.”

To celebrate this milestone, community members across X (formerly Twitter) have been sharing their excitement and support. Below are a few standout tweets capturing the enthusiasm and pride surrounding Crescendo—a clear sign of how deeply invested the Kaspa community is in the project’s growth and evolution.

And we finally did it!!

Kaspa Accepted Here

The third episode of "Kaspa Accepted Here" launched, featuring Angel, a former corporate lawyer turned restaurant owner in Vilnius, Lithuania. Angel now runs Latino Viščiukas, the first Latin American rotisserie chicken restaurant in the city—and he's accepted Kaspa as payment since day one. He discovered Kaspa through his brother and was inspired by a podcast featuring Shai, recognizing the project's ethical foundation, fair launch, and dedicated core team.

To encourage adoption, Angel offers 20% off for customers paying with Kaspa and uses a one-click visualizer to demonstrate the transaction speed and reliability. He describes Kaspa as “Bitcoin on steroids” and highlights the authentic, education-driven community as his favorite part of the ecosystem. His advice to other business owners is simple: accept Kaspa and be part of the future of commerce.

Watch the full episode on YouTube to hear Angel’s inspiring journey firsthand—and don’t forget to support him and Latino Viščiukas if you’re ever in Vilnius. Stories like his show how real-world Kaspa adoption is already taking shape.

Yonatan Sompolinsky’s Post and Differing Views

On April 30, 2025, Yonatan Sompolinsky, co-founder of Kaspa, announced a pivotal shift in how the Kaspa project should communicate with its community. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he explained that the management of Kaspa's official X account will transition from being personality-driven to a more decentralized and collaborative approach, operating in a "streamlined copilot mode". As part of this transition, Chad, who has long been the public-facing figure in Kaspa's marketing efforts, will step back from this central role to reduce single points of dependence and align communications with the project's decentralized ethos.

Sompolinsky emphasized the need to minimize reliance on intermediaries and foster a more transparent ecosystem, where development conversations happen openly and builders can contribute freely. This change is meant to reflect Kaspa's foundational values of decentralization, encouraging a tone and strategy that speaks directly to the crypto-native community. The updated direction will also focus on communicating core protocol advancements and long-term vision, rather than short-term engagement metrics.

Some of his key points include: 

Personality to Protocol:

Kaspa's voice on X will no longer rely on individual personalities for traction. The account will represent the protocol, aiming to establish a voice that resonates with crypto-native audiences and reflects long-term goals rather than short-term engagement.

From Capturing to Enabling Value:

Instead of capturing attention through memes or hype, the account will aim to enable value by highlighting protocol innovations and building tools. The new focus is on cultivating meaningful engagement around Kaspa's technological contributions.

Less Intermediation, More Transparency:

Yonatan criticizes gatekeeping and the lack of transparency that is common in crypto communities. Kaspa's new direction will emphasize open discourse, where information and contributions flow freely without being filtered through centralized media or marketing. He noted that the tone should lean toward the BTC-aligned, cypher-punk ethos-less corporate and more relatable.

From a Personality to a Protocol:

The Kaspa X account will no longer mirror the voice or tone of Yonatan or any single individual and will no longer use memes from the Kaspa team. Instead, it will represent the broader protocol, with input from a decentralized group of contributors, including developers, researchers, and community leaders. 

Community Collaboration:

Yonatan calls on the community to help shape the tone and strategy of Kaspa's communications. This includes clarifying the protocol's roadmap and finding better ways to engage users and builders around what makes Kaspa unique. Yonatan stated that he would not intervene and that third-party Kaspa-oriented accounts would not be promoted. As a humorous aside, he suggested the account might even be run like Litecoin's—with a "shitposting intern" at the helm.

This shift isn't limited to the X.com account. The Kaspa.org website is also expected to undergo major changes. Yonatan referenced Conway's Law, which suggests that the structure of a system tends to mirror the communication structure of the organization that built it. In other words, to create decentralized and cohesive systems, organizations must first decentralize and streamline their internal communication.

Yonatan explained and cited Conway's Law, which asserts that the structure of a system is a direct reflection of the organization that designed it. In other words, how teams are arranged and communicate within a company tends to bemirrored in the architecture of the systems they build. This observation underscores the idea that to craft more cohesive and effective systems, organizations should consider aligning their internal communication structures with the desired outcomes of their products and systems.

Community Reactions

Eyal Yablonka, a respected community member, reflected on a key issue with Kaspa's current marketing: it relies too heavily on Chad as the sole point of contact, which creates a bottleneck and centralization problem. He argues that Kaspa needs a more decentralized, transparent structure with multiple accessible entry points, clear guides, and diverse resources for newcomers seeking collaboration. A memorable quote he posted is:

“Our problem is not Chad! Our problem is that we don't have at least 5 "Chads" to turn to in every field from marketing to research. On the website, and everywhere. The community needs to be educated on how to do things in the Kaspa ecosystem with guides. “

On the other hand, Michael Sutton shared a contrasting view, stating that the protocol’s core should not be defined solely by code and that he didn’t find the X.com account particularly important.

The XXIM Podcast offered a middle-ground perspective: suggesting that a Kaspa Foundation could manage the Kaspa X.com account, akin to how Ethereum’s messaging is partially shaped by the Ethereum Foundation, with figures like Vitalik playing visible roles.

Christian Ludwig, once one of Kaspa’s largest miners, voiced disappointment. He felt the changes contradicted the spirit of the Community Marketing Fund (CMF) proposal, which had previously been supported by community vote.

Other voices in the community expressed concern that the override of the X.com account by a small group of individuals reveals that the project may not be as decentralized as it claims. Here are a couple of comments expressing that view under Yonatan’s article post:

Ultimately, the decision to change the @Kaspa X.com account and remove Chad from his former role marks a significant shift in how the project presents itself to the public. While change can be uncomfortable, especially when it involves people who have contributed meaningfully, it's also a chance to realign communication with the evolving values and direction of the Kaspa ecosystem. Whatever one's view, it's clear that transparency, accountability, and a shared vision will be crucial as the community moves forward. That said, many recognize Chad's passion and dedication over the years, and it's important his contributions aren't forgotten as Kaspa continues to grow. We remain grateful for all he's done, and we'll continue to support him with his new project, The Kaspa Commons. Everyone, give his project a follow on X! 

And with that, we leave you with a few questions we must ask ourselves regarding Yonatan's last two articles - even if they may be difficult to ask: 

Can a community of faces, including its founder and authors, truly be faceless? 

Can Kaspa truly fulfill the faceless cypherpunk ideal of Bitcoin and Satoshi? 

How much control and power should the core team of Kaspa have? 

How should communities be created? I.e., through spontaneous competition or from a top-down approach? Both approaches have pros and cons—what are these pros and cons? 

In the end, who should have priority in marketing: the community or Kaspa core? Perhaps a middle ground between the two is the answer. 

While removing Chad may be the best approach in the long run, as in the case of the Celtics letting go of Marcus Smart (and soon after winning a Championship), letting someone go requires a coach and a top-down organization (as in the case of a basketball team). How do we mediate between what could be best and what has occurred spontaneously? 

Let us know what you think in the comments below! 

From Sompi to Dwork to Litra

In a previous article, we supported renaming the smallest KAS unit of account to DWORK, in praise of Cynthia Dwork, a famous computer scientist in distributive systems theory. However, coderofstuff recently proposed the name Litra -  a unit of account for silver (Lit for short). According to Mr. Stuff, "I didn't find the name. In fact, it was this guy called "notedtrader.kas" in Discord that first suggested it. I just liked it enough to keep repeating." The original suggestion for the name can be found in a Discord thread here. 

We love this name and fully support it. It represents a true faceless measurement and adheres to our silver-dominant story.

XXIM with Sione from Kaspa.com

On May 1, 2025, XXIM hosted an X Spaces featuring Kristina, Ankit, and Sione from Kaspa.com, focusing on DeFi and the future of financial tools on Kaspa. Sione explained that Kaspa.com is building two key components: a DeFi platform (swaps, lending, staking with better UX than Uniswap) and a dedicated lending protocol, with a testnet expected soon.

The team is developing its own oracle while awaiting broader research to power this. They're also building across multiple L2s, including Igra Labs and Kaspa-native solutions, giving users a choice

A major highlight was Kaspa's potential to act as a Layer 2 for Bitcoin, enabling DeFi and unlocking BTC liquidity. While Uniswap isn't expected to come soon, Sione believes Kaspa's speed and cost-efficiency could make it a preferred settlement layer for EVM chains in the future.

Catch the full conversation on X Spaces to hear Sione's vision, technical details, and how Kaspa could become a foundational layer in the future of DeFi. It's a must-listen for anyone interested in Kaspa, Bitcoin scalability, or next-gen decentralized finance.

To read more about Kaspa.com, please see our interview with them at "Introducing KaspaCom: An Interview with the Team".