TL;DR: 

• Zero-knowledge enabled on Layer 1: Kaspa added Groth16 proof verification support to Rusty Kaspa, allowing developers to begin building zero-knowledge applications, such as confidential transactions, directly on the base layer.

• Foundational roadmap advancing: Michael Sutton outlined how Kaspa is moving from research into real code, finalizing on-chain rules and cryptographic building blocks that will allow future applications to be built safely and at scale on top of the network.

• Layer-2 ecosystem momentum builds: Community discussions highlighted progress at Igra and Kasplex, including node decentralization, upcoming whitepapers, and early expectations for stablecoins in 2026.

• Kaspa usage expands beyond payments: New applications launched across gaming, education, commerce, and markets, including a play-to-earn tower defense game, a learn-to-earn education platform, and a KAS-denominated marketplace for digital and physical goods.

• Developer activity remains strong: GitHub data shared by Kaspa Daily showed growing and distributed contributor participation across core protocol work, wallets, tooling, and infrastructure. 

Zero-Knowledge on Kaspa is Here

This week, Kaspa developer, saefstroem (@asaefstroem), published a GitHub update to Rusty Kaspa, enabling Kaspa to verify Groth16 zero-knowledge proofs generated by any proof system that supports the algorithm.

@ScapeSquad described the update as a meaningful step forward, stating:

“Groth16 advances #Kaspa privacy and decentralization capabilities, allowing developers to build ZK-based applications like confidential transactions directly on the L1. 

Welcome to the beginning of the endgame.”

The change marks an early but important milestone toward more expressive cryptographic functionality on Kaspa’s base layer.

Kaspa’s Next Steps Update by Michael Sutton 

Kaspa core developer Michael Sutton shared an update this week, explaining that the foundations for future Kaspa apps are starting to take real shape.

He described the moment as ideas moving into reality, writing that it is “exciting to see ideas that started as research and diagrams begin to materialize in real code.” The update reflects roughly a year of work by Kaspa researchers and community developers, turning long-term plans into working systems.

At a high level, here’s what’s happening:

• Smarter on-chain rules (Covenants): Kaspa is building a way for transactions to follow built-in rules and automatically track their own history. This enables the creation of apps, tokens, and systems directly on Kaspa without relying on trusted intermediaries.

• Easier and safer foundations: The team is simplifying how these rules are checked so the network doesn’t need to dig through old transaction history. Once this design is finalized, the test network will reset to lock everything in cleanly.

• Privacy and advanced apps: New cryptographic tools are being added that allow Kaspa to support privacy features and more advanced applications while keeping transactions fast and secure.

• Preparing for real apps and Layer-2 systems: More complex applications will live on additional layers built on top of Kaspa, while the base layer stays focused on fast, reliable payments.

• Native tokens and assets: Work is underway on assets that use Kaspa’s security directly, without bridges or custodians.

Sutton summed up the phase as building infrastructure before usage takes off, explaining that the focus right now is on making the system easy to work with and reason about, so future applications can grow safely on top.

Resources to Better Understand Covenant++ on Kaspa

Following last week’s introduction to Covenant++ and Kaspa’s expanding programmability roadmap, two new resources provide additional context from both a beginner and technical perspective.

At a high level, covenants define spending rules on UTXOs. Covenant++ is Kaspa’s upgraded system that makes those rules scalable, verifiable, and usable for real applications, without introducing global state or smart-contract complexity.

First, Manyfest (@manyfest_) shared an interactive explainer that walks through what covenants are, how zero-knowledge verification fits in, and how future vProgs build on this foundation, starting from core concepts like UTXOs. Please note that the explainer is best viewed on a non-mobile screen. 

Second, BankQuote (@BankQuote) explained how KIP-17 on Testnet 12 marks Kaspa’s shift from being mainly a fast payment network toward supporting built-in application logic. The post highlights an important difference: Covenant++ focuses on simple rules checked directly when transactions occur, while vProgs take a longer-term approach to handling more complex programs off-chain and verifying their results on-chain. Both approaches are designed to avoid heavy system overhead so Kaspa can remain fast and scalable.

He stated: “KIP-17 on Testnet 12 represents a definitive pivot for Kaspa… to a platform for native programmability without compromising the Proof of Work or BlockDAG principles that ensure decentralization.”

Together, the two resources provide both a beginner-friendly overview and a deeper technical framing of why Covenants++ matter as Kaspa moves toward broader application support.

Blockchain Banter: Kaspa Ecosystem Discussion Featuring CryptoPumpz

On a recent episode of Blockchain Banter, several members of the Kaspa community gathered to discuss ongoing Layer-2 development and ecosystem progress. The discussion featured CryptoPumpz, Ashton (Nacho / Igra), Kaspador (Kasplex), and Quick Crypto.

Ashton, one of the creators of the Nacho KRC-20 token and now Business Development lead at Igra Labs, outlined Igra’s approach to node decentralization. He described two primary node roles:

• Tester nodes, which continuously generate proofs and allow users to observe transactions across both Kaspa Layer-1 and Layer-2.

• Challenger nodes, which independently monitor and attest to tester node behavior, adding an additional verification layer.

He also noted that the Igra token generation event (TGE) is expected to take place before the planned mainnet launch, which is currently targeted for March.

The panel emphasized the importance of incentivizing node operators to support long-term decentralization. Igra Labs was noted as being only days into mainnet activity, with the network still in an active testing phase.

Discussion also turned to Kasplex, with confirmation that a Kasplex whitepaper is forthcoming and additional ecosystem developments are planned. Participants suggested that stablecoins on Kaspa could arrive as early as Q1 2026, though details remain undisclosed. Two potential paths were discussed: bridged stablecoins and native issuance, with trade-offs between cost, trust assumptions, and issuer control.

Security considerations were addressed, with panelists noting that both Kasplex and Igra operate as based rollups, inheriting security assumptions from Kaspa’s Layer-1 while emphasizing interoperability across L2 designs.

Aporia Exchange on XXIM Podcast 

On a recent episode of the XXIM Podcast, host Ankit interviewed Roger and Dawid, the founders of Aporia Exchange, a proposed decentralized order-book DEX built for the Kaspa ecosystem.

Roger brings a background in finance and crypto investing, with exposure to Bitcoin dating back to 2012 and prior experience across centralized lending, DeFi, and crypto gaming. Dawid is a software engineer with over 15 years of experience, primarily focused on frontend and game development.

The team described Aporia as a Kaspa-native, decentralized order-book DEX, drawing conceptual comparisons to Hyperliquid, aiming to enable deeper, fairer on-chain liquidity and transparent price discovery. Roger argued that Kaspa’s limited access to Tier-1 centralized exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase reflects structural misalignment with incumbent exchange business models rather than a limitation of Kaspa itself. He noted that the large platforms operate proprietary ecosystems that are threatened by Kaspa’s ability to operate as perfect money.

Rather than waiting for centralized listings, the team’s stated objective is to provide a non-custodial, Kaspa-native venue for buying and selling KAS. Aporia plans to launch with spot trading first, followed by perpetual products later, unlike Hyperliquid’s initial focus on perps.

From an infrastructure perspective, the team evaluated both Kasplex and Igra Labs, and currently plans to build on Igra. Long-term, they intend to develop a custom Layer-2 once vProgs are live on Kaspa. Roger emphasized that Kaspa’s Layer-1 should remain neutral and optimized for peer-to-peer payments, with more complex market structures—such as order books or dark-pool-style execution—handled at the L2 level to accommodate differing transparency and institutional requirements.

During the episode, the team demonstrated a live Aporia demo and discussed plans including decentralized listings, a focus on security, potential zero listing fees, and the publication of a future whitepaper. Liquidity bootstrapping was acknowledged as a core challenge for any order-book DEX.

Aporia is still in early development on the Igra testnet, with further progress expected as Kaspa’s Layer-2 ecosystem continues to mature.

Kaspa Developer Activity Shows Sustained Growth

Kaspa Daily shared updated developer activity metrics as of January 13, 2026, showing continued and expanding development across the Kaspa ecosystem. The current Rust reference node has 47 unique GitHub contributors, compared with 38 contributors across the lifetime of the legacy Go implementation, indicating that development expanded rather than reset during the Rust transition.

Across the broader Kaspa ecosystem, including wallets, explorers, tooling, and infrastructure, 64 developers have contributed code within the past 12 months. Contributor activity increased by roughly 50% year-over-year in 2025 and has continued into early 2026, suggesting sustained engagement rather than short-term experimentation. 

Lightning vs Bitcoin: Kaspa’s Base-Layer Case

In a recent discussion shared by CryptoPumpz, Seb (@Seb28_7, builder of KasMap) and former DAGLabs contributor Eyal (@fishtuna) compared Kaspa’s base-layer design with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.

They argued that Kaspa’s Layer 1 is designed for mass self-custody and near-instant on-chain payments, without relying on off-chain payment channels to achieve everyday transaction throughput. By contrast, they characterized Lightning as a separate payment layer, citing payment channel limitations, ongoing monitoring requirements, and user-experience trade-offs that can reintroduce intermediaries.

The discussion also raised longer-term questions around Bitcoin’s fee-based security model as block subsidies decline. Seb noted that Kaspa similarly depends on adoption to sustain miner incentives, but argued that Kaspa’s higher throughput allows that burden to be distributed across a much larger transaction base if usage materializes. 

Kaspa University Launches Learn-to-Earn Education on Kaspa  

Kaspa University (Kaspa.University) was launched by Dr. Liberty (@_DrLiberty) as a decentralized learn-to-earn education platform built directly on Kaspa Layer 1. The platform is designed for both crypto-native and non-technical users, offering structured coursework focused on BlockDAG architecture and monetary systems.

At the core of the platform is the KU Protocol (Kaspa University), an open-source system that records cryptographic proofs of quiz completion on Kaspa L1. Each completed course generates a verifiable on-chain record, creating an immutable learning trail with potential applications beyond education. A dedicated protocol explorer is live, with a full indexer currently under development.

Currently, Kaspa University offers 23 courses that introduce several Kaspa-native components, including public on-chain Q&A via K Social Network, planned end-to-end encrypted peer-to-peer support through Kasia Messaging, and KRC-721 diploma NFTs. The initial KU Diploma collection is capped at 10,000 and becomes mintable only after completing all 23 courses.

Reflecting on the project’s development, Dr. Liberty stated:

“Building Kaspa University has been by far the most rewarding thing—aside from family—I’ve ever done. To see a long-term obsession being brought to life day by day is something I hope everyone gets to experience. If I can do it, anyone can, especially with how fast AI is progressing.”

Learners earn 0.1 KAS per completed course, with rewards governed by anti-sybil safeguards including wallet correlation checks, quiz cooldowns, minimum completion times, and VPN detection. A demo mode is available for users who wish to explore the curriculum without incentives. Course topics include Bitcoin vs. Kaspa, Sound Money and Monetary Debasement, Self-Custody and Hardware Wallets, Core Data Structures, and more.

The project is fully open source and built with modern AI tooling, positioning it as a reusable public utility for the Kaspa ecosystem. Kaspa University is currently in beta and is being prepared for submission to Kaspathon 2026, with community testing and collaboration encouraged.

Congrats Kasplex For Completing 10M Blocks

As of January 14, 2026, Kasplex, Kaspa’s first Layer-2 (L2) network, surpassed 10,000,000 blocks, marking a major operational milestone.

Kasplex was the first based-rollup L2 built on Kaspa and provides Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) interoperability. The team is currently developing newVM, described as a high-performance virtual machine optimized for scripting automation, IoT, and gaming use cases on Kaspa.

On January 6, Kasplex highlighted the growing breadth of activity on the network, encouraging users to explore its public project directory, stating: “I would definitely check Kasplex’s website…”

Projects and infrastructure providers listed on the site include Ankr, Bitslab, Chainlink, Circle, Crypto API, DagScan, Ellipal, Foresee, Kas.Fun, Kaskad, Kaskeeper, Kaspa Finance, Kaspa.com, Kasperia, Kastle, Kasware, Kurve, RD Auditors, and Zealous.

New Play-to-Earn Tower Defense Game Early Access Beta

FUD Must Die is a play-to-earn tower defense game built on Kaspa. The name references FUD, a common finance term meaning fear, uncertainty, and doubt, which the game frames as something players must overcome. Described by the team as “Defend. Survive. Earn.”, players defend towers and earn KAS rewards based on in-game performance, with payouts settled directly on the Kaspa network.

The project is currently in early access beta. The team describes the game as Kaspa-native

Kaspathon Kicks Off With 200+ Developers

Kaspathon has officially begun, with 205 developers participating to build applications and infrastructure across the Kaspa ecosystem.

To support new participants, the community has shared several starter resources, including a Python integration guide by IzioDev, a curated GitHub list of Kaspa tools, and open-source reference projects such as Kasia, Kasmaps, and K-Social. Additional resources are being crowdsourced from the community as development gets underway.

Reflecting the community’s tone at kickoff, organizers encouraged participants: “Let’s go #Kaspathon hackers! Make something great on #Kaspa!”