During the last bull cycle, the big story was Proof of Work's supposed inability to scale, especially with a congested Ethereum, then still operating on PoW, charging exorbitant gas fees and slow block times. The energy use narrative collided with the climate change narrative, and PoW got skewered amongst crypto nerds and normies alike. People flocked to Proof-of-Stake projects, including Ethereum itself in September 2022, and aside from grandpa Bitcoin, it seemed that PoW was the uncool boomer in the room still trying to hang.
Then, Kaspa $KAS comes around and re-ignites the whole PoW narrative. Seemingly going on it's own bull-run while the rest of the market was still asleep in early-mid 2023, $KAS enjoyed a 400% jump even before the fall. It's enjoyed another 500% jump since and is one of only a few mid-large-cap projects to 10x this year.
So what makes Kaspa special? A combination of novelty, narrative, and as always, the enthusiasm of its community.
Operating on a the GHOSTDAG Protocol, Kaspa, which is greek for "Silver," merges the best features of both Bitcoin and Ethereum, is driven by its community (fair launch, completely decentralized, no vc investors), and is taking a completely different, if novel, approach to building a blockchain that is closer to Satoshi Nakamoto's vision of a simple, decentralized, scalable digital currency, unconcerned (for the moment) with the glittery world of high-yield DeFi, NFT hype, and smart contracts.
I'm still wrapping my head around how Kaspa's unique tech give it an advantage over other L1s, but I'm convinced that the L1 wars, outside of the rebirth of Solana, is ripe for a newcomer to shake things up. Additionally, I believe the majority of the space wrote off PoW prematurely, as we're still early in the adoption curve and will continue to see project like Kaspa build off lessons of earlier projects while remaining consistent with a goal and approach. Show Less
