Launched in 2019, Kusama is the brainchild of Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot and co-founder and former CTO of Ethereum.

Kusama was built using Substrate (a modular blockchain framework), with (nearly) the same codebase and industry-leading multichain infrastructure as its cousin Polkadot.

Designed for risk-taking and radical innovation, Kusama is both a fast-moving “canary in the coal mine” for Polkadot and an experimental development environment for teams who want to move fast and innovate on Kusama, and/or prepare for deployment on Polkadot.

It's a living platform built for change agents to take back control, spark innovation and disrupt the status quo. Kusama provides unprecedented interoperability and scalability for blockchain developers who want to quickly push the limits of what’s possible.

Like Polkadot, Kusama is a scalable, multichain network, consisting of up to 100 independent blockchains (parachains) working in parallel and interoperating, with security provided by a Relay Chain.

Kusama is ideal for lean startups looking to move fast and iterate as it allows them to launch their custom blockchain (parachain) project with low economic barriers to entry.

KSM, the native tokens on Kusama, is used to:

• validate the network
• nominate validators
• bond parachains or parathreads
• vote on governance referenda
• reward projects that support the network

Kusama is a project of Web3 Foundation.