Kusama (KSM) is the native token of Kusama, its own Layer-0 relay chain built on the Substrate/Polkadot-SDK framework — not an EVM or Solana token.
Launched in August 2019 by the team behind Polkadot, Kusama operates as an independent, community-governed network historically used as a live proving ground for runtime and governance upgrades before they reach Polkadot. As of 2026, it reportedly hosts over 50 active parachains covering DeFi, gaming, identity, and cross-chain bridging.
Kusama differentiates itself by shipping protocol changes faster and with fewer safeguards than Polkadot, giving KSM holders direct, low-latency influence over experimental features before broader adoption.
This proving-ground role lets the community trial new runtime mechanisms and governance processes in production before equivalent changes are considered for Polkadot.
KSM functions as both a governance and utility token: holders use it to vote on-chain, secure the network, and pay for transactions.
KSM has no maximum supply cap; circulating supply is approximately 18,767,016 KSM as of 2026-09-02, with a market capitalization near $66.57 million.
Net emission is inflationary: new KSM is issued under a Nominated Proof-of-Stake model targeting roughly 10% annual inflation. The split between validator rewards and the on-chain treasury depends on how close the actual staking ratio is to an ideal 50% target — at exactly 50% staked, validators receive all new issuance, while deviation shifts more inflation to the treasury.
Kusama launched in August 2019 without holding a dedicated public token sale of its own.
KSM was instead distributed to participants of Polkadot's (DOT) 2017 initial coin offering via an Ethereum-transaction claim process completed in July 2019. Polkadot's underlying October 2017 ICO, conducted by the Web3 Foundation, raised over $144.3 million in DOT. Kusama's network launch therefore postdates that fundraising, functioning initially as a "canary" companion network to Polkadot rather than a separately funded project.
Kusama runs on its own Layer-0 relay chain built with the Substrate/Polkadot-SDK framework, rather than on Ethereum, Solana, or another host chain.
At launch in 2019, Kusama used a proof-of-authority consensus limited to validators operated by Parity Technologies and the Web3 Foundation. It has since decentralized to Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS), in which KSM holders nominate community-run validators to produce blocks and secure the chain.
Kusama was created by Dr. Gavin Wood — an Ethereum co-founder and creator of the Solidity language — together with Robert Habermeier and Peter Czaban, through the engineering company Parity Technologies.
This is the same core team responsible for the Polkadot network and the Substrate/Polkadot-SDK framework underlying both chains.
The Web3 Foundation — formally Web 3.0 Technologies Stiftung, a Swiss-law foundation based in Zug — funds and stewards the Kusama and Polkadot ecosystems.
It was founded in 2017 by Gavin Wood, Aeron Buchanan, Peter Czaban, Reto Trinkler, and Mathias Bucher. Parity Technologies, a separate for-profit company also co-founded by Wood and Habermeier, builds the core Substrate/Polkadot-SDK software used by both networks.
Kusama is governed entirely on-chain through OpenGov (Gov2), fully adopted in 2024, which replaced the earlier council-based model with continuous referenda.
KSM holders submit and vote on proposals at any time, delegate voting power to others, and place deposits to advance referenda. The on-chain Treasury funds ecosystem grants, protocol upgrades, and parachain initiatives, drawing partly from the share of block-reward inflation not paid to stakers.
Kusama's 2025-2026 roadmap centers on becoming an independent, experiment-focused network rather than solely Polkadot's testbed.
No named third-party audit report specific to Kusama has been identified; core protocol security instead relies on ongoing bug-bounty and disclosure programs.
Parity Technologies operates a Security Hub (security.parity.io) covering the Substrate/Polkadot-SDK codebase, alongside an ecosystem bug bounty via Immunefi offering up to 100,000 DOT for the Open Runtime Module Library used across Kusama and Polkadot parachains. KuCoin delisted KSM from margin trading on January 14, 2026, a modest liquidity signal.