What is Kaspa?

Kaspa is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency built on a blockDAG (directed acyclic graph) architecture using the GHOSTDAG protocol, which allows multiple blocks to be created simultaneously and included in the ledger rather than discarding parallel blocks as orphans as Bitcoin does. This design enables Kaspa to sustain a block rate of one block per second (with development toward 10 and eventually 100 blocks per second) while maintaining proof-of-work security properties. Kaspa launched in November 2021 as a fair-launch project with no premine, no ICO, and no founder allocation — all coins are mined.

The core innovation distinguishing Kaspa from Bitcoin and other PoW chains is its GHOSTDAG (Greedy Heaviest-Observed Sub-Tree DAG) ordering protocol, developed by researchers including DAGLabs founder Yonatan Sompolinsky, whose earlier PHANTOM and GHOST papers laid the academic groundwork. Traditional PoW blockchains discard parallel blocks (orphans) and only extend the longest chain, wasting the security work those blocks represent and forcing a tradeoff between block frequency and orphan rate. GHOSTDAG instead includes all parallel blocks in a structured DAG and uses a greedy coloring algorithm to identify a "blue" set of honest blocks, achieving consensus that honors the mining work of all honest miners. This allows block frequency to increase dramatically without the security degradation that would occur in a traditional blockchain.

Kaspa occupies a distinct positioning in the 2024-2026 cryptocurrency landscape as a GPU-minable PoW chain with a fair-launch ethos, appealing to a community that views Bitcoin as the only legitimate precedent and sees PoS networks as centralized or security-theater. The kHeavyHash algorithm was designed to be GPU-friendly and ASIC-resistant, though as with most PoW chains with growing hashrate, ASIC manufacturers eventually developed Kaspa-specific hardware. The emission schedule follows a smooth reduction (halving approximately annually, but on a per-second decay curve rather than discrete halvings), and total supply is approximately 28.7 billion KAS. Critics note that Kaspa's DAG structure, while theoretically elegant, adds implementation complexity and has fewer real-world stress-tested deployments than Bitcoin's simpler chain structure.

Reviewed by the 2Bitcoins Editorial Team · Updated June 2026. Not financial advice.