What Is Kusama (KSM)? 

Kusama is a scalable network of blockchains meant for experimentation. Kusama is the identical copy of the Polkadot blockchain and provides a pre-production environment for Polkadot. The platform allows developers to experiment and test new decentralized applications (DApps) before releasing them on the network in real time. The blockchains available on Kusama’s network are called Parachains that bring several breakthroughs compared to the legacy networks. 

While other networks only allow developers to build using smart contracts, Kusama seeks to give them complete control over the underlying blockchain. This flexibility aims to provide freedom to the developers to optimize for better use cases and hence better and secure DApps and services for all. Smart contracts are just like regular contracts; however, instead of being drafted on paper, these contracts run in the form of protocols on the blockchain. Moreover, Kusama also serves as a Canary Network for Polkadot. Official Polkadot upgrades are tested on Kusama before they are launched. Hence, the primary use case of Kusama is to facilitate testing.        

Kusama seeks to offer many features to the projects developed on the network including the following:

• Innovation – The same team develops Kusama as Polkadot using the same codes and tools. In addition, the network aims to provide the latest technology from Parity Technologies and Web3 Foundation for the developers.

• Scalability – Kusama’s blockchains are sharded, and Kusama’s open governance makes the platform a scalable infrastructure. Sharding is the process of database portioning on the blockchain for scalability, enabling it to process more transactions per second.    

• Interoperability  - Kusama brings multiple blockchains called Parachains together into one sharded network, thus seeking to offer freedom to the developers from the siloes of the legacy network. 

• Customization – Kusama is built on Substrate by Parity Technologies. Substrate is the framework to build the blockchains quickly. With the help of this framework, the developers can build their app-specific blockchains and connect them to the Kusama network.     

KSM is the native token of the platform. KSM has many use cases on the platform like token holders can validate the network, nominate other validators, and use governance rights to vote on the major decisions of the platform, all using KSM.   

History of Kusama (KSM)   

Dr. Gavin Wood founded Kusama in 2016. He is a cofounder of Ethereum and a cocreator of the Polkadot network.