What Is Kusama?
Self-described as “Polkadot’s wild cousin,” Kusama is an experimental blockchain platform that is designed to provide a massively interoperable and scalable framework for developers.
Kusama Coin is built on Substrate — a blockchain building kit developed by Parity Technologies. Kusama has almost the same codebase as Polkadot — one of the most successful interoperable blockchains.
By deploying on Kusama, fast-paced projects gain access to a highly scalable, interoperable sharded network, with features that are not yet available on Polkadot. To that end, describes itself as a “canary network.”
The platform is designed to provide a testbed for developers looking to innovate and deploy their own blockchain and can be used as a preparatory network before launching on Polkadot — though many projects opt to stick with for their final product.
Kusama Coin benefits from a low barrier to entry for deploying parachains, low bond requirements for validators, and is most commonly used by early-stage startups and for experimentation.
| Coin Basic | Information |
|---|---|
| Coin Name | Kusama |
| Short Name | KSM |
| Circulating Supply | 8,470,098.06 KSM |
| Total Supply | 9,651,217 |
| Source Code | Click Here To View Source Code |
| Explorers | Click Here To View Explorers |
| Twitter Page | Click Here To Visit Twitter Group |
| Whitepaper | Click Here To View |
| Support | 24/7 |
| Official Project Website | Click Here To Visit Project Website |
Flexible Price
The live Kusama price today is $176.95 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $66,234,315 USD. They update KSM to USD price in real-time. This is up 3.32% in the last 24 hours. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #59, with a live market cap of $1,498,783,747 USD. It has a circulating supply of 8,470,098 KSM coins and the max. supply is not available.
The Scalable, Multichain Network for Radical Innovation.
Unprecedented interoperability and scalability for blockchain developers who want to quickly push the limits of what’s possible. Built using Substrate with nearly the same codebase and industry-leading multichain infrastructure as cousin, Polkadot.
Origin of Kusama
The relationship between society and technology has deteriorated to the point where large entities routinely stretch and overstep their authority.
Kusama is a network built as a risk-taking, fast-moving ‘canary in the coal mine’ for its cousin Polkadot. It’s a living platform built for change agents to take back control, spark innovation and disrupt the status quo.
Launch your custom blockchain
Fast Iteration
Move fast and ship your product. Kusama risk-taking and nimble mentality allows developers to move swiftly through the governance and upgrade process, enabling rapid progress and growth.
Low Economic Barriers
Launch your custom blockchain (parachain) project with low barriers to entry. Ideal for lean startups looking to move fast and iterate.
Advanced Technology
Build on a next-generation, sharded, multichain network, while employing the newest features before they are deployed on Polkadot.
Open Governance
Kusama is owned and governed by a community of network participants who vote on and control the evolution of the network. Have a voice and make your mark in the evolution of the network.
Engaged Community
Leverage Polkadot’s global brand and developer community for your parachain, parathread or dApp.
Valuable Experience
For teams looking to move to Polkadot after fine-tuning on Kusama, begin building your community and brand on Kusama before deployment.
Bring to your project
Innovation
Kusama is built by the same teams as Polkadot, using nearly the same code and tools. The network places the latest tech from Parity Technologies and Web3 Foundation in the hands of developers, even before those features make it to Polkadot.
Scalability
Kusama sharded blockchains and open governance provide a scalable and future-proof infrastructure for businesses, marketplaces and applications to deploy and mature.
Interoperability
Kusama brings multiple blockchains together into one sharded network, freeing developers from the siloes created by legacy blockchain networks.
Customization
With Substrate, developers can build their own app-specific blockchain and connect it to Kusama.
Who Are the Founders of Kusama?
Kusama was built by the same team that created Polkadot, a company known as Parity Technologies. Its founder is Dr. Gavin Wood, a world-renowned computer scientist and programmer, who also co-founded Ethereum.
Parity Technologies has an extensive team comprised of some of the world’s most successful blockchain engineers, and has over 100 employees in total spread throughout the world.
In addition,is funded by grants from the Web3 Foundation, which was launched to help “nurture and steward technologies and applications in the fields of decentralised web software protocols.” The Web3 foundation also supports with research and community development thanks to its growth team.
How Is the Kusama Network Secured?
Kusama is built using a nominated proof-of-stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism. This uses a network of nominators (KSM stakers) who elect nodes to participate in the transaction validation process. These nominators receive a fraction of the inflation reward if their nominator is selected on the next rotation. Validators that act dishonestly or don’t meet performance requirements can have their stake slashed.
Additionally, Kusama uses a simple queuing mechanism based on Merkle trees to resolve cross-chain transactions. Relay chain validators are responsible for moving transactions from the output queue of one parachain to the input queue of the target parachain — this is a secure, trustless process that uses the same validators on each chain to pass the messages.
Where Can You Buy Kusama (KSM)?
Kusama (KSM) is currently available to trade on dozens of popular exchange platforms, including Binance, OKEx and Huobi Global. The most liquid trade pairs for KSM are currently KSM/USDT, KSM/BTC and KSM/ETH
