About KASPA
Kaspa is the fastest and most scalable instant confirmation transaction layer ever built on a proof-of-work engine. Transactions sent to miners can be included immediately in the ledger, which is structured as a revolutionary blockDAG. Kaspa is based on the GhostDAG/PHANTOM protocol, a scalable generalization of the Nakamoto Consensus (Bitcoin consensus). Its design is faithful to the principles Satoshi embedded into Bitcoin — proof-of-work mining, UTXO-formed isolated state, deflationary monetary policy, no premine, and no central governance. Kaspa is unique in its ability to support high block rates while maintaining the level of security offered by the most secure proof-of-work environments. Kaspa’s current mainnet operates with one block per second. After the ongoing rust language rewrite, the core developers goal is to increase the number of blocks per second substantially, attracting the development of smart contracts and DeFi.
SOLVING THE TRILEMMA
Traditional cryptocurrencies suffer from a security-scalability-decentralization tradeoff: decentralized cryptocurrencies must limit their block creation rate in order to limit “orphans”, off-chain blocks created during the time it takes for a latent block to be propagated across the network. A high orphan rate decreases the effectiveness of the PoW network, thus decreasing its defense against attacks from malicious actors joining the open network. To solve this tradeoff, Kaspa’s consensus layer uses GhostDAG, a proof-of-work consensus protocol that generalizes Nakamoto’s chain into a directed acyclic graph of blocks ( blockDAG). GhostDAG incorporates”orphan” blocks into the chain to form a blockDAG, and then uses a novel greedy algorithm to order the blocks such that well-connected, honest blocks are favored, quickly and with high probability. GhostDAG allows Kaspa to circumvent the traditional tradeoff of blockchains, improving on block rate by orders of magnitude while maintaining the theoretical security guarantees of Bitcoin.
This results in a cryptocurrency that is supported by 51% security, has a high number of miners / nodes, and has throughput on the order of one block per second. This is unlike existing cryptocurrencies, which inevitably trade off on having small numbers of validator nodes or lower BFT security (33% threshold needed for malicious actors to attack the network).
Fast Confirmations
Traditional cryptocurrencies’ slow block rates indicate slow confirmations, i.e., the time it takes for a transaction to be published on the blockchain. Kaspa’s consensus layer supports fast, subsecond confirmations— a fast first confirmation, which enables use cases that need immediate proof of publication (but not immediate irreversibility), such as e-commerce.
High Throughput
Traditional cryptocurrencies’ slow block rate also indicates low transaction throughput. Using GhostDAG, Kaspa’s consensus layer removes security as a bottleneck for high throughput, allowing block rate and block size increase up to what the network can handle. Kaspa also optimizes bandwidth cost and network infrastructure for high throughput.
Mining Decentralization
Traditional cryptocurrencies’ slow block rate also indicates high variance of mining income (i.e. irregular mining rewards due to the difficulty of finding a block), incentivizing miners to join larger and larger mining pools—which combine computing power and distribute smaller, more regular mining incomes to participants—as the network grows and the block difficulty increases. This centralizes the consensus power into the hands of a few pool managers. Kaspa’s consensus layer’s fast block rate decreases the variance of mining income – which decreases the incentive to join mining pools – contributing to mining decentralization.
Articles & News
Chinese Kaspa Community XSpace Ep13 – Kasplex
#Kaspa Chinese Community Biweekly Space Ep13 Theme: Kasplex AMA Time: 2024.05.05 Sunday 8pm, Moderator: Dr. Jason @Badsucker666 Guests: #Kasplex @kasplex and its founder @5bb55b Transcripted & Translated by the bot of Dr. Jason. Reviewed by SHL, Captain Sats...
Kaspa Represents in Poland
We are excited to propose Kaspa's participation in the upcoming Next Block Expo in Warsaw, Poland. This event provides an excellent platform to showcase our innovative BlockDAG technology and connect with people. In this article, we detail our objectives, proposed...
KASPlex FAQ
Last month with the introduction of Kaspa Ecosystem Foundation and its first official project, KASPlex, we had lots of questions raised and so a channel was opened up to collect a list. The KASPlex team have graciously answered many and the rest will be addressed in...
WDMS 2024 Oman Recap
March 29, 2024 By Global AMbassador, Luke I was honoured to represent Kaspa as a Global Ambassador at the World Digital Mining Summit (WDMS) in Muscat, Oman. This summit, organised by Bitmain, a manufacturer of ASIC miners, brought together the foremost minds in...
Kaspa Kicks off World Tour 2024 at the Web3 Festival in Hong Kong
Hong Kong, March 30, 2024 - Kaspa, the revolutionary cryptocurrency platform, is set to make waves at the upcoming Web3 Festival in Hong Kong, marking the commencement of the highly anticipated Kaspa World Tour 2024. Supported by the Kaspa Ecosystem Foundation (KEF),...
Kaspa Developer Spotlight – Coder of Stuff
Written by Shai Wyborski Hi $kas, meet @coderofstuff_ from the rusty crew! Coder is a self-taught developer in the Great White North working in the tech industry for over a decade. Coder started making contributions to the Kaspa echosphere since as early as 2022,...
Kaspa: Accelerating Beyond the Blockchain
From a Concept to a Cutting-Edge Deployment An Evolution, Not a Replication Those who follow Kaspa understand the monumental work the developers are undertaking. It’s far from just another entry in the crowded space of crypto-nonsense; it’s not another Bitcoin clone,...
On Crypto Forks
The differences and reasons of hard and soft forks. Crypto Forks Do you ever wonder what a fork actually is in cryptocurrency? What is the difference between a hard and a soft fork, and why does it matter? Why do people make such a big deal over a fork in the road?...
Kaspa BlockDAG Makes Waves at IIT Mumbai
I was privileged to serve as a Representative at The OPHacks event, held at IIT Mumbai.This event brought together the best developers from across India, providing a unique opportunity for me to engage with them. One of the highlights of the event was witnessing...
GET HIGH AND FLY 2024 Sponsored with KASPA!
This is the first time Kaspa was introduced at a sporting event. And so, KASSports was born. Thanks, Nur!! Combining KASPA with people’s passion for sports is a win-win. It lowers the barrier to entry by connecting something complex and new like cryptocurrency to...
Join & Follow the COmmunity
We are a growing community and are always looking for enthusiastic people to join the project. If you are a coder, marketer, vlogger, community manager, enthusiast, or anything else join the Kaspa Discord and say, “hi!”
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PUBLIC DONATIONS ARE WELCOME!
Simple donation through Cryptocurrency Checkout
Manual donations dev-fund-address: kaspa:precqv0krj3r6uyyfa36ga7s0u9jct0v4wg8ctsfde2gkrsgwgw8jgxfzfc98
Mining dev-fund-address: kaspa:pzhh76qc82wzduvsrd9xh4zde9qhp0xc8rl7qu2mvl2e42uvdqt75zrcgpm00
The wallet is managed by 4 members of the community (msutton, Tim, The SheepCat and demisrael) who were publicly voted in to become the Treasurers.