Kaspa makes 10 blocks per second, and a payment can be included in the ledger almost immediately. Stronger confirmation takes seconds, not simply the 0.1 seconds between blocks. Kaspa’s community-run site describes its goal as reaching in seconds the payment security that takes about an hour on Bitcoin. [1]
Blocks and payment confirmations are different
A block is a miner’s contribution to the transaction history. Kaspa uses a blockDAG, a structure that lets blocks created in parallel remain useful and be ordered together, rather than keeping only one competing branch. This is how Kaspa supports its live rate of 10 proof-of-work blocks each second. [1]
The Crescendo upgrade introduced the move from one block per second to ten. Its release notes scheduled activation for 5 May 2025; that upgrade is no longer something users need to wait for, because the ten-block rate is live. [2][1]
For a payment, there are two important stages:
- Inclusion: the transaction first appears in the ledger. Kaspa is designed to let miners include transactions immediately. [3]
- Stronger confirmation: more mining work builds on the transaction’s history, giving greater confidence that it will remain accepted. This takes longer than first inclusion. [4][5]
In his Bitcoin Takeover interview on 21 August 2025, Yonatan Sompolinsky explicitly separated three stages: first inclusion, the point where reversal becomes very unlikely (probabilistic finality), and the point where it is ruled out (final finality). His description of “internet speed” proof of work referred to first inclusion, not all three stages at once. [4]
Why ten blocks per second does not mean instant settlement
Blocks still need time to travel between miners. During the first few seconds, miners may be producing blocks before they have learned about the block containing your payment. A faster block rate does not remove that communication delay. [5]
Rusty Kaspa contributor coderofstuff explained on 30 July 2026 that Crescendo improved confirmation times, but did not simply divide them by ten: network delay dominates the first few seconds. [5]
There is also no rule that increasing the block rate always makes strong confirmation faster. In his 8 August 2026 Bitcoin Takeover interview, Sompolinsky said that raising the existing GHOSTDAG design directly from 10 to 100 blocks per second would require changing its security parameter and could make confirmation take roughly eight times longer, reaching tens of seconds. That was a hypothetical change, not the live network’s block rate. [6]
For the distinction between a payment first appearing and gaining stronger confirmation, watch Sompolinsky’s explanation in Bitcoin Takeover, starting at 7:13:43. [4]