Everything You Need to Know About Kaspa
Crypto Networks

Everything You Need to Know About Kaspa (KAS)

Attiq

Proof-of-work and Proof-of-stake are the most commonly used consensus mechanism in the blockchain space. Both types of protocols have their own advantages and disadvantages. Proof-of-Work is popular among those who prioritize security whereas, Proof-of-Stake is a leading choice for those who prefer fast speed with excellent throughput.

The users of these protocols have to compromise on some important features. Kaspa offers a unique kind of protocol, GHOSTDAG, to provide the best of both worlds.

Key Takeaways: –

  • Kaspa (KAS) is a blockchain platform that combines elements of both Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) through its unique GHOSTDAG consensus protocol, offering advantages of both security and fast transaction speed.
  • The platform utilizes a two-layer system to enhance scalability and transaction sequencing, preventing congestion issues even with a high number of users.
  • The platform uses a modified version of SHA-256 (Bitcoin’s encryption protocol) called kHeavyHash for transaction security and relies on miners to validate transactions.

What is Kaspa (KAS)?

KAS works on the model of Bitcoin to provide a secure and decentralized environment for sending and receiving funds. The platform is dedicated to providing faster and cheaper transactions while overcoming the limitations of older cryptocurrencies like high fees and low transaction speed.

Kaspa provides a scalable and more efficient experience while processing a number of transactions in parallel. It means the platform won’t face any congestion issues even if a huge number of users are using the platform. KAS prevents the double spending problem with its GHOSTDAG consensus protocol.

Kaspa Brief History

Kaspa was introduced by Yonatan Sompolinsky in 2020. Sompolinsky published a paper on Ghost Protocol in 2013 that laid the foundation of this project. The project was initially funded by the founders. In April 2023, the Kaspa team raised around $1 million through a crowdfunding campaign to list on a leading crypto exchange.

Yesss Capital is the leading investor that invested $500,000 in this project. KAS team is going to use these funds to expand its infrastructure while enhancing the user experience.

Kaspa Important Features

Everything You Need to Know About Kaspa (KAS)
  • Instant Confirmation – Kaspa provides a satisfactory experience with its instant ledger confirmation. It provides fast transaction settlement while offering smooth integration with other web applications.
  • Rapid and Scalable Transaction Sequencing – KAS uses a two-layer system to enhance the network’s scalability. The base layer only stores information about the state of the payments while the second layer maintains detailed information about the transactions. Kaspa also provides a scalable transaction sequencing layer to address the timely issue of crypto projects.
  • BlockDAG – Unlike other blockchain networks, Kaspa uses blockDAG for recording transactions. This model works like a tree where blocks are connected in a specific way. The users don’t need to wait for long for the transactions to be processed because blockDAG confirms transactions instantly. With this model, Kaspa provides high-throughput transactional bandwidth and next-generation scalability without compromising on decentralization.
  • Peripheral Nodes – In a traditional blockchain network, miners and trading bots can gain an advantage over average users by using several manipulation tactics. With its fast block times, Kaspa can easily prevent the ‘MEV threats’ and ‘frontrunning’ before they even happen.
  • Security – KAS uses a modified version of SHA-256 (Bitcoin’s encryption protocol) to ensure the security of transactions. This new version is called kHeavyHash which ensures the security and reliability of Kaspa. Kaspa also relies on miners to validate the transactions. Miners are responsible for checking the legitimacy of the transactions. Kaspa is available to anyone who wants to contribute to protecting the network.

How Does Kaspa Work?

Kaspa uses a directed acrylic graph of blocks to store user data. PoW is designed to ensure on-chain security while GHOSTDAG protocol is used for achieving consensus. In a traditional PoW blockchain network, the miners need to solve cryptographic puzzles to add new transactions to the block. Whoever solves the puzzle first gets to keep the reward.

After finalization, the block is added to the existing chain of blocks. In this process, all miners are working on solving the same set of puzzles at the time. And even a second’s difference can make a lot of trouble. If a miner received a block request even with a delay of a second, it may disturb the addition of new blocks.

It ends up creating multiple branches of the chain because the miners will add the blocks in a different sequence. Although the problem is solved by focusing on the longer chain, it seriously affects the performance of the network.

Kaspa doesn’t discard blocks with conflicting transactions but it adds them to a directed acrylic graph because this network doesn’t follow the direct sequence of blocks. GHOSTDAG algorithm prevents the issue of adding the same blocks to the blockchain twice.

If block B refers to block A, it shouldn’t have been created before block A. The order of a new block is determined based on the number of blocks that are referring to that block. The blocks are assigned index numbers depending on when they were added to the network. If more than one block are referring to the same number of ancestors, the network prioritizes the block that has a smaller hash.

Kaspa Tokenomics

KAS is the native token of the network that is used to pay transaction fees. DAGLabs team uses this fee for the further development of the project and a portion of the transaction fees is transferred to node operators. With a circulating supply of 19.9 billion tokens, KAS has a market cap of $85 million. It has a total supply of 28.7 billion tokens that will be released over time.

Conclusion

Kaspa (KAS) stands out in the blockchain space by combining the strengths of PoW and PoS through its innovative GHOSTDAG consensus protocol. With instant confirmation, rapid scalability, and high throughput, Kaspa offers a secure and efficient platform for transactions, overcoming the limitations of older cryptocurrencies.

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