KAS is the governance token for Kaspa, which was founded in 2016 by a researcher named Yonatan Sompolinsky to implement the GHOSTDAG protocol.
The protocol was designed to scale proof-of-work (PoW) systems, with development led by DAGlabs and backed by Polychain Capital. It adheres to Bitcoin’s original decentralization principles.
Kaspa was officially launched in November 2021 and focuses on high-speed transactions using a blockDAG structure. The project was developed by a team of researchers and developers, including Shai Wyborski, Aviv Zohar, Michael Sutton, Elichai Turkel, Ori Newman, and Mike Zak.
The Kaspa whitepaper talks about a new way to make blockchains more scalable. This is done through a protocol called PHANTOM, which is used with the GHOSTDAG consensus mechanism.
Bitcoin and other traditional blockchains use a linear chain of blocks, which means they can only handle about three to seven transactions per second because blocks need to be made slowly and spread quickly.
Kaspa gets around this problem by using a blockDAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) instead of a linear chain. This lets multiple blocks be made and confirmed at the same time.
The PHANTOM protocol is at the heart of Kaspa’s new idea. It puts blocks in a DAG instead of throwing away “orphaned” ones like Bitcoin does.
Kaspa doesn’t just ignore these blocks; it adds all valid blocks to the ledger and puts them in a specific order. This makes things a lot more efficient and makes sure that network resources aren’t wasted.
But PHANTOM needs to solve a problem that is challenging to compute, so the practical implementation uses GHOSTDAG, an algorithm that approximates PHANTOM while keeping security and scalability.
GHOSTDAG works by finding a group of well-connected “blue blocks” that are thought to be honest and trustworthy, while putting less weight on blocks that could be harmful. This lets the network agree on the order of transactions even when blocks are made quickly and at the same time.
The protocol adds a parameter called “k” that controls how much tolerance there is for creating blocks in parallel. This has a direct effect on throughput and security.
One of the best things about Kaspa is that it can grow without putting security at risk. According to the Nakamoto Consensus, adding more blocks worsens security.
But GHOSTDAG keeps security strong even when throughput goes up. This gets rid of the usual trade-off between speed and decentralization. Because of this, Kaspa can work much better. It can currently handle about 40 transactions per second.
Kaspa shows strong decentralization in the real world, with a lot of mining done by people who are not part of the network. Hence, as per Kaspa’s website, its circulating supply and total supply are equal and sit at 27.3 billion KAS, while the maximum supply is at 28.7 billion.
