What is Kaspa?
Kaspa is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency built on a blockDAG rather than a blockchain. It went live on 7 November 2021 with no premine, no ICO and no coins set aside for founders or investors: every KAS in existence was mined in the open, and Bitcoin block hashes were embedded in the genesis block to prove nothing was mined in secret beforehand.
The design comes from Yonatan Sompolinsky, co-author of the 2013 GHOST paper that the Ethereum whitepaper later cited, and the research line that followed it — SPECTRE, PHANTOM and finally GHOSTDAG. The problem it solves is old: in Bitcoin, two blocks found at the same moment compete and one is discarded, so blocks have to be slow (ten minutes) to keep those collisions rare. In Kaspa, every new block points to all the tips it can see, parallel blocks are kept rather than orphaned, and GHOSTDAG puts them in one agreed order. Speed stops being a security trade-off.
The node software was rewritten in Rust (rusty-kaspa), and on 5 May 2025 the Crescendo hard fork raised the network from one to ten blocks per second. Transactions show up in about a tenth of a second and are practically final within seconds, while mining stays open to anyone with hardware.
- Ticker
- KAS
- Mainnet
- 7 Nov. 2021
- Launch
- Fair, no premine
- Consensus
- Proof of Work, GHOSTDAG
- Block rate
- 10 blocks per second
- Hash function
- kHeavyHash
- Max supply
- ≈ 28.7B KAS
- Emission
- Chromatic halving, monthly
Toccata: programmable proof of work
For its first four years Kaspa was fast money and not much more. The Toccata hard fork, activated on mainnet on 30 June 2026, changed that. It is the largest upgrade since launch, and it adds three things to the base layer.
Covenants
A covenant is a spending rule that travels with the coins and carries state from one transaction to the next: who may spend, how much, when, and what the next output must look like. That is enough to build vaults with withdrawal delays, smart wallets with recovery rules, native tokens and payment channels — directly on Kaspa, without a separate chain.
Silverscript
Silverscript is a high-level language that compiles covenant logic down to Kaspa Script. Developers describe the state and the allowed transitions; the compiler handles the stack encoding and the plumbing. It is what turns covenants from a research feature into something teams can actually ship.
Native zero-knowledge verification
Toccata also added opcodes that verify Groth16 and RISC Zero STARK proofs at layer 1. A ZK rollup or an off-chain program can prove its result to Kaspa, and the base layer checks it, so heavy computation can live off-chain while settlement stays on proof of work.
What comes next is on the published roadmap: DAGKnight, a consensus upgrade that adapts to real network conditions instead of a fixed latency assumption, then block rates of 25, 40 and eventually 100 blocks per second, and vProgs — synchronously composable programs on layer 1 — targeted for 2027. Roadmaps slip; Toccata itself moved several times before it shipped.
Kaspa in 2026: where it stands
The price has not followed the engineering, at least not yet. KAS peaked near $0.21 at the end of July 2024 and spent most of 2025 and 2026 grinding lower. In September 2026 it bounced hard: up roughly 45% over the month, helped by a wider altcoin rally and by news that Standard Chartered agreed to acquire Zodia Custody, which has held KAS for institutional clients since 2024.
- Price (25 Sept. 2026)
- ≈ $0.042
- Market cap
- ≈ $1.16B
- All-time high
- ≈ $0.21 (July 2024)
- From the high
- ≈ −80%
- Mined so far
- ≈ 27.7B (96%+)
- Toccata
- Live, 30 June 2026
- Institutional custody
- Zodia (since 2024)
- Spot on Binance / Coinbase
- Not listed
Figures from CoinPaprika on 25 September 2026; the live widget at the top of this page is the one to trust.
A KRC-20 indexer was exploited — the Kaspa network was not. An attacker abused a signature-validation flaw in the Kasplex KRC-20 indexer, an off-chain service that tracks tokens inscribed on Kaspa, and drained large amounts of the ZEAL and NACHO tokens from a bridge wallet. KAS balances and the base layer were unaffected, and a node release on 22 September further hardened the network against spam. The lesson is the usual one: young ecosystem tooling carries more risk than the chain under it.
Why buy Kaspa?
Our thesis in one sentence: Kaspa is the most serious attempt to make proof of work fast enough to use, it launched as fairly as Bitcoin did, and in 2026 it finally became programmable. Here is how we weigh it.
What works
- Fair launch: no premine, no ICO, no insider allocation
- Proof-of-work security at ten blocks per second, already live on mainnet
- More than 96% of the supply is already mined — little dilution ahead
- Toccata brought covenants, a real language and native ZK verification
- Institutional custody through Zodia, now being bought by Standard Chartered
What does not
- KAS trades around 80% below its July 2024 high
- No spot listing on Binance or Coinbase, which limits who can buy it
- The smart-contract ecosystem is months old and its tooling has already been exploited
- Mining is dominated by specialised ASICs, as with Bitcoin
- DAGKnight, 100 BPS and vProgs are still promises, and dates have slipped before
How to buy Kaspa? (MEXC, step by step)
Because the largest exchanges still do not offer spot KAS, you buy it where it is liquid. MEXC lists KAS against USDT with a 0% maker fee, and that is the route we use. The short version:
- Open a MEXC account and enable two-factor authentication with an authenticator app.
- Complete identity verification — it raises your withdrawal limits and unlocks card purchases.
- Fund it with USDT: buy it by card on MEXC, or send USDT or another coin from an exchange you already use.
- Buy KAS on the spot market (pair KAS/USDT) with a limit order, not the one-click Buy button.
- Withdraw to your own Kaspa wallet: send a small test amount first, then the rest.
In the European Union? MEXC holds no MiCA licence and told EEA users in June 2026 to withdraw their funds before 1 July. Read our MEXC page before you open an account.
Kaspa: Official websites
Start with kaspa.org, then check any transaction on an explorer. Kaspa has no company and no foundation token sale: anyone offering you an “official” KAS presale or airdrop is running a scam.
Kaspa: Social Networks
Kaspa is community-run, so news is spread across several channels. Kaspa Media publishes a weekly digest of development work.
Kaspa FAQ
Short answers to the questions people ask about Kaspa in 2026.
What is Kaspa?
Kaspa is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency launched on 7 November 2021 with no premine, no ICO and no team allocation. Instead of a single chain of blocks it uses a blockDAG ordered by the GHOSTDAG protocol, which lets blocks produced in parallel all count. Since May 2025 it produces ten blocks per second. Its native coin is KAS.
What is a blockDAG?
A directed acyclic graph of blocks. In Bitcoin, two blocks found at the same moment compete and one is thrown away, so blocks must be slow to keep that rare. In Kaspa, each new block references every tip it can see, parallel blocks are kept, and GHOSTDAG puts them all in one consistent order. That is what allows many blocks per second without giving up proof-of-work security.
What did the Toccata hard fork change?
Toccata activated on mainnet on 30 June 2026. It added covenants, which are spending rules that carry state from one transaction to the next, Silverscript, a high-level language that compiles to Kaspa Script, and native opcodes to verify zero-knowledge proofs (Groth16 and RISC Zero STARKs). Together they open the way to vaults, smart wallets, native tokens and ZK-based layers on top of Kaspa.
How many KAS will ever exist?
About 28.7 billion. Roughly 27.7 billion had been mined by September 2026, so more than 96% of the supply is already in circulation. Kaspa uses a chromatic halving: the block reward falls a little every month instead of halving in one step every four years, which adds up to a halving every year.
Is Kaspa a good investment?
It is a high-risk bet on one idea: proof of work that is fast enough to use. The technology is real and shipping, the launch was fair and almost all coins already exist. Against that, KAS trades around 80% below its 2024 high, it is still missing from the spot markets of the largest exchanges, and its smart-contract ecosystem is only months old. Do your own research and only invest what you can afford to lose.
Where can I buy Kaspa?
On exchanges such as MEXC, which lists KAS against USDT with a 0% maker fee. Binance and Coinbase do not offer spot KAS. Buy USDT or send crypto to the exchange, trade it for KAS on the spot market, then withdraw to a Kaspa wallet you control. MEXC holds no MiCA licence, so readers in the EU should check the rules that apply to them first.