Kaspa differs from Bitcoin by keeping proof of work while changing how blocks fit together: instead of extending one winning chain, miners can build on several blocks at once. This lets the network process parallel blocks rather than discard them simply because they arrived together.[1] Its goal is real-time decentralization: fast settlement, censorship resistance and open mining, not just more transactions.[2]
What stays the same
Both use proof of work, where miners perform computational work to propose blocks.[1] Kaspa also follows Bitcoin’s coin-based design: funds are held in unspent transaction outputs, or UTXOs, rather than in accounts with a single stored balance.[3]
A UTXO is a separate amount of coins with rules controlling how it can be spent. In his August 2026 Bitcoin Takeover interview, Yonatan Sompolinsky explains that Kaspa keeps Bitcoin’s UTXO approach and deliberately limited scripting model, while adding instructions for more advanced verification.[3]
Kaspa launched in November 2021 without a premine, insider allocation or presale. Its coins have been mined openly from genesis onward.[2] It is an open-source community project without central governance.[4]
The main change: parallel blocks
Bitcoin’s mining model has miners extend the winning chain. Kaspa instead has miners extend the known history of blocks, with each new block pointing to several recent predecessors.[1]
That structure is called a blockDAG: a network of blocks whose links point backward without forming loops.[1] Parallel blocks can remain in that history, and GHOSTDAG supplies a shared ordering so nodes can resolve conflicts consistently.[4]
This distinction matters because a faster single-chain system produces more competing blocks. Sompolinsky’s research sought to reduce that speed-versus-security problem by changing the structure and ordering rules, rather than merely shortening the time between blocks.[1]
Keeping parallel blocks does not mean accepting conflicting payments. The history can contain competing transactions, but the ordering protocol provides the preference needed to resolve inconsistencies.[1]
The community-run Kaspa lore page describes the live network as operating at 10 blocks per second.[2] Fast block production and safe confirmation are different things: confirmation depends on the network establishing agreement, not merely on a transaction appearing in one block.[1]
What this makes possible, and what it costs
Kaspa’s stated aim is to bring settlement and censorship resistance into seconds rather than the much longer waits associated with Bitcoin.[2] That responsiveness also matters when transaction order affects an application, because giving one block producer discretion over ordering can give that producer significant power.[2]
The trade-off is more work for nodes. In his November 2020 design essay, Sompolinsky explicitly identifies higher CPU and bandwidth use as the cost of greater throughput.[1] He also describes pruning old history as a way to speed up synchronization, with trade-offs for how a new node checks the past.[1]
Kaspa has also expanded its base-layer spending rules. Toccata activated on 30 June 2026 and introduced covenants, rules that can constrain how coins are spent and carry information forward into the coins that replace them. These support designs such as vaults, smart wallets and native assets.[2]
The research behind it
A useful detail is that Sompolinsky describes Bitcoin’s Nakamoto consensus as a special case of a broader family of blockDAG protocols, not as an unrelated design.[1] His essay, “In which I run with the GHOSTs of my hometown”, explains that research path and why ordering parallel blocks is the central challenge.[1]
For his spoken explanation, watch Bitcoin Takeover at 4:55. Sompolinsky explains the multiple-predecessor change and why he considers Kaspa’s fundamentals closely related to Bitcoin’s.[5]