Just buy on dips, no need to consider overall balance
Evolution rather than replication
Anyone who follows Kaspa understands the hard work the developers are doing. It’s far from being just another entry in the crowded crypto-buzzword space; it’s not another Bitcoin clone, meme token, or even a blockchain; it’s a project that aims to redefine the foundations of crypto technology and the financial ecosystem.
Yet there is a narrative out there that Kaspa’s progress has been slow, a narrative driven by misunderstanding, hype, and the rapid expectations common in the crypto world. But let’s be clear: the past 18 months have been anything but stagnant for Kaspa. This period has been marked by a true push for innovation, the application of cutting-edge scientific methods, and significant advancements, all of which together define the Kaspa Standard.
A team of approximately 20 developers are at the heart of this transformational journey. Through their combined efforts, Kaspa’s operations have undergone significant changes, paving the way for a future where scalability and efficiency in crypto are optimized and anticipated.
The rapid development and massive amount of work achieved in just a year and a half highlights the commitment and expertise behind Kaspa, challenges any notion that progress is slow, and underscores the project’s role in setting a new benchmark for technical excellence in the crypto space.
Rust rewrite
In what is often referred to as a Rust rewrite, the developers have completely revamped Kaspa's codebase. To describe this work as a mere "rewrite" would be to understate its significance; in reality, it is a complete rebuild that is remarkable in both approach and execution. This task went beyond the scope of a regular update or improvement; reimagining Kaspa's architecture from the ground up was a visionary goal. This fundamental overhaul required both technical understanding and a profound reassessment of Kaspa's core principles, ensuring that the revamped codebase reflects and amplifies those foundational ideals.
During this complex Rust rewrite, the developers thoroughly examined every line of code, aspiring to surpass the established benchmarks of efficiency, scalability, and reliability set by the previous Go standard, push the limits of blockDAG technology, and set new precedents for the future. A key element of this overhaul was to ensure a seamless transition from the existing Go-based system to the Rust implementation, syncing at 1 block per second (BPS) to ensure backward compatibility. This was a key move to enable frictionless evolution and continued network functionality, laying a solid and common code base for bringing the Rust version to an insane 10 BPS. This ground-up rebuild reimagined Kaspa's technical foundation. It also opened the door to huge untapped network potential that depends entirely on the collective imagination of the Kaspa community.
Innovative network performance
While a detailed account of this major transformation is beyond the scope of this article, here are some highlights to emphasize the scale of the work involved.
Kaspa has completely revamped the mempool as well as important parts of the network’s validation logic and difficulty adjustment algorithm — a redesign that allows for throughput that was once thought to be unfeasible. With unprecedented elegance, the Kaspa network is now able to expertly manage large volumes of transactions, with a pending transaction count of over 500,000, setting a new high in throughput for proof-of-work.
Kaspa performance updates
New Mempool implementation manages thousands of pending transactions
medium.com
Streamlined API
Understanding the critical role seamless integration plays in widespread adoption, Kaspa developers have completely revamped the API. The move is intended to simplify the developer interface, making it more intuitive and easy to use. Ultimately, the API provides enhanced flexibility and functionality and significantly lowers the barrier to entry for developers and integrators, promoting a more inclusive Kaspa ecosystem.
Embracing WebAssembly
In a strategic shift towards the future, Kaspa has adopted WebAssembly (WASM), laying the foundation for progressive applications such as Kaspa Next Generation (KNG) - which I call Kaspa's new model. This enhancement expands the potential scope of Kaspa's applications - another shift towards more user-centric web interactions, and brings a future through browser extensions.
Solving the UTXO Bloat Problem
Kaspa solves the UTXO set bloat issue, which is related to the growing database of unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) that leads to increasing full node storage requirements. This issue affects storage requirements and hinders the efficiency of syncing new nodes to the network, as larger UTXO sets significantly slow down the process. By developing innovative strategies to mitigate this problem, Kaspa is lowering the barrier to entry and creating a more scalable and efficient network. A forthcoming paper outlining its solution will explore more details about this approach.
Transitioning to Rust
As you can read, Kaspa is launching a Rust implementation on mainnet, starting with 3-5% of its hashrate. It’s worth noting that there is a careful plan behind this transition. The careful migration from 1 BPS in Go to 1 BPS in Rust is not an upgrade; it’s more like a bridge, ensuring that Kaspa’s new design can be seamlessly translated from theory to practice in a live network.
This phase is critical for the technology transition and maintaining the integrity of the network and user confidence. The quiet and controlled approach to moving hash power is a deliberate effort to precisely manage this major change and prepare for any contingencies. This decision recognizes that the successful deployment of a cryptocurrency requires the careful planning of the integration of new features without disrupting the existing ecosystem.
If Kaspa had not already become a multi-billion dollar project, the mainnet push might have come sooner. However, the scale of the project requires a careful, controlled approach. This approach separates cautious deployment from creative development.
Development is the creative phase where new ideas are born and tested in a safe environment, allowing for innovation without immediate real-world impact. Deployment, however, involves integrating these innovations into a live network. This process requires care to maintain stability, security, and efficiency. This approach ensures Kaspa continues to lead in innovation and guarantee a stable and scalable network for its users, striking a balance between introducing new features and maintaining the integrity of the network.
TN11
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that since the beginning of 2024, Kaspa’s TN11 has been operating at an impressive 10 BPS.
KNG Visualizer - TN 11
Kaspa’s development and deployment of TN11, demonstrating speeds of 10 BPS in a world-class peer-to-peer system, marks the entry of Kaspa into uncharted territory in cryptography. Achieving this level is a big step toward a new frontier that requires pushing the boundaries of concurrency in computing and communication to the limit. The complexity of producing such a high-throughput system, where every millisecond counts, requires Kaspa to have unparalleled precision in the design and implementation of network protocols.
This high-frequency block production initiative disrupts how blockchain networks operate at scale. The engineering challenges here are profound — the components of the system must be perfectly synchronized, a critical threshold. Any deviation, no matter how small, can cause cascading failures, turning minor issues into major outages. The fact that Kaspa developers were able to navigate this tightrope and ensure that every part of the network operates in perfect harmony highlights the technical prowess and innovative spirit that drives the project forward.
Kaspa's Testnet 11 excels in stability, security, and speed. It runs at 10 BPS while managing 3,000 TPS of transaction throughput and handling a mempool queue of over 500,000 transactions with excellent stability.
Below are past articles
Deep Dive: "TN11 Node on Kaspa 10-BPS Testnet"
In addition to the above, in a relatively short period of 18 months, Kaspa has undergone a transformation that many projects would envy (as evidenced by the seemingly endless forks). Kaspa developers have made remarkable progress through unwavering dedication and vision beyond the current crypto horizons. It’s important to remember that Kaspa isn’t just making progress; it’s leading the way, rekindling the foundational cryptographic vision of a decentralized, efficient, and open financial system that gave rise to Bitcoin.
Good luck and see you next time!
I will be posting project research and essay updates regularly, so stay tuned for more information and to stay up to date!