Kusama

KSM Price

What is Kusama?

Kusama is a public blockchain network that is running the exact same codebase as Polkadot. It is aimed to be a canary build for the Polkadot network which is an experimental and development environment for new features that will eventually be deployed to Polkadot. Because of the experimental nature of Kusama, the developmental speed is much faster and it has seen significant traction since launched in 2019.

Notable projects that have expressed interest to deploy on the Polkadot network are also treating Kusama as an experimental sister chain. For example, the Acala DeFi network which was planned to be rolled out on Polkadot, will begin deploying the Karura network on Kusama first.

Who created Kusama?

Founders of the project include team members of Polkadot such as Gavin Wood (whom used to found Ethereum with Vitalik Buterin and team), Peter Czaban, and Robert Habermeier. 

What is the Kusama Parachain Slot Auction?

The Kusama network consists of a multi chain architecture. These chains (also called parachains) are interconnected with each other within the network through leasing a slot on the Relay Chain. In order for a chain to obtain a slot, projects will need to bid for it via an auction. The Parachain Slot Auction is conducted in order to allocated slots to the projects that have the most KSM bonded coins.

In order to raise enough KSM to secure a slot, projects may opt for a parachain loan offering to raise KSM from the public. Holders will need to bond and lock their KSM coins with the project that they are interested to support with the hope that the project will secure a slot and go live with the network. As auction participants will be taking risks of locking up their KSM, projects would typically offer some sort of reward incentives, one option would be for them to offer their own native token should the network launches.For example, Karura is offering 12 KAR tokens for every 1 KSM that is contributed to their loan offering.

Projects should opt to using the Kusama built-in crowdloan module when confucting the loan offering to ensure users funds are protected and remains locked for the purpose of the slot lease.

The Kusama auction guide is a great place to read more about the entire mechanism.

How can I participate in a Kusama parachain auction?

Users can choose to participate in the parachain auction in the form of a crowdloan. This can be done through a centralized exchange or decentralized services. They would also need to hold some KSM coins.

Exchanges such as Kraken, Kucoin, and Okex supports parachain auctions directly within their exchange.

For a decentralized options, users can consider Bounce, Math Wallet, or interacting with the Polkadot.js on the project website directly.

Where can I find all the projects that are participating in the auction and offering a crowdloan?

You may visit the Subscan explorer crowdloan section to follow real time progress of the crowdloan.

Where can you buy Kusama?

KSM tokens can be traded on centralized crypto exchanges. The most popular exchange to buy and trade Kusama is Kraken, where the most active trading pair KSM/USD has a trading volume of $163,519.29 in the last 24 hours. Other popular options include Binance and OKX.

What is the daily trading volume of Kusama (KSM)?

The trading volume of Kusama (KSM) is $2,714,550.90 in the last 24 hours, representing a -37.20% decrease from one day ago and signalling a recent fall in market activity. Check out CoinGecko’s list of highest volume cryptocurrencies.

What is the highest and lowest price for Kusama (KSM)?

Kusama (KSM) reached an all-time high of $621.71 and an all-time low of $0.8766. It’s now trading -99.30% below that peak and 365.00% above its lowest price.

What is the market cap of Kusama (KSM)?

Market capitalization of Kusama (KSM) is $77,562,479 and is ranked #326 on CoinGecko today. Market cap is measured by multiplying token price with the circulating supply of KSM tokens (19 Million tokens are tradable on the market today).

What is the fully diluted valuation of Kusama (KSM)?

The fully diluted valuation (FDV) of Kusama (KSM) is $77,562,479. This is a statistical representation of the maximum market cap, assuming total number of 19 Million ETH tokens are in circulation today.

How does the price performance of Kusama compare against its peers?

With a price decline of -10.50% in the last 7 days, Kusama (KSM) is underperforming the global cryptocurrency market which is down -0.80%, while underperforming when compared to similar Smart Contract Platform cryptocurrencies which are down -0.70%.