Kusama

Kusama is a network that shares the same codebase as Polkadot and where new features are tried out first under real economic conditions; it describes itself as Polkadot's canary network. It was developed by Parity Technologies and launched in 2019. KSM is Kusama's native coin.

At the heart of Kusama is a relay chain that provides shared security for parallel chains (parachains). The network runs on a nominated proof-of-stake model: validators stake KSM, while nominators bond their tokens in support of validators they trust. KSM is also used to vote in on-chain governance (OpenGov) and to purchase the processing capacity (coretime) that parachains need. Governance and upgrade periods on Kusama are shorter than on Polkadot, which makes the network faster but more experimental.

The KSM price can be shaped by factors such as the vitality of projects running on Kusama, the general state of the Polkadot ecosystem, inflation from staking rewards and the technical risks that come with being a testing ground. On Lzzo.com, the Kusama price is taken from KSM/USDT trading on Binance; converted into dollars at Coinbase Exchange's USDT/USD rate, this value is tracked the same way on the chart.