We cover a lot of projects to give our readers a broad view of the market. With a bull market anticipated anytime soon, we realized that some of our new readers might need an introduction to some projects.
So, we’ve been doing a guide to good projects. These guides are not investment advice. Instead, they are simply explainers. They introduce you to a project, and then you make your choice. For this article, we’ll be looking at Kusama Network.
What is Kusama?
Kusama offers a testing environment for developers that want to deploy a project on Polkadot before it goes live. It works like a development tool. Kusama works pretty much like a “sandbox.”
So, projects that want to launch on Polkadot can test their products and make corrections before releasing their offering to a wider community. This way, they are able to detect errors and make the necessary adjustments.
Source: Twitter
Kusama is used to test official Polkadot upgrades before their release. In simple terms, Kusama aims to provide developers with more flexibility when they complete the design of their Polkadot applications since its main use case is to facilitate testing. Also, Kusama has less restrictive guidelines than Polkadot, such as fewer governance requirements.
Introduction to Kusama’s Token, KSM.
The KSM token is the Kusama ecosystem’s native currency. KSM serves both Proof-of-Stake and governance functions. To use the system, a developer wouldn’t need to hold a lot of KSM, but it might help them recoup some of the expenses associated with using Kusama to test a project.
From the standpoint of tokenomics, the function of KSM is essentially the same as the function of DOT. You need staked tokens for the blockchain to function. In addition, KSM stakers that support the KSM blockchain are rewarded with more KSM.
Source: Twitter
The KSM token could rise in value as the Polkadot ecosystem gains more users. The Kusama platform also makes it considerably simpler to become a block validator because it requires far fewer tokens than Polkadot does. You can buy KSM on Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken.
How to Stake KSM
Kusama operates on a Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism. This is a variation of the Proof-of-Stake. However, NPoS differs by having two different types of stakeholders: validators and nominators.
A validator is responsible for running its own validator node. This includes validating data from the relay chain and parachain blocks. So, a validator manages both their own stake and the stakes of those who nominated them.
There are different ways to stake your KSM. The easiest, however, is to use an exchange like Bitfinex. Exchanges like Bitfinex allow users to deposit funds. In return, the exchange uses the funds for staking activities. You can stake your KSM on Bitfinex by depositing the token in your account. The exchange takes it from there.
Source: Twitter
Top 3 Kusama explorers
Blockchain explorers are software for viewing blocks, transactions, and blockchain network metrics. Some of the metrics include average transaction fees, hashrates, block size, and block difficulty. Here’s a list of three good Kusama explorers:
As of this article, KSM trades at $25.66.
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