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Interact with Kusama

Polkadot's Canary Network​

Kusama is a canary network for Polkadot; an earlier release of the code that is available first and holds real economic value. For developers, Kusama is a proving ground for runtime upgrades, on-chain governance, and parachains.

No Promises

Kusama is owned by those who hold the Kusama tokens (KSM). There's no central kill switch and all changes are made through the protocol's on-chain governance.

The network is a permissionless and anyone can come along and start using it. Those who participated in the Polkadot sale can claim a proportional amount of KSM through the Kusama Claims process.

Kusama is experimental. Expect Chaos.

As a KSM holder

You can interact with all the features of the Kusama network such as staking (i.e. validating or nominating), governance, basic transfers and everything else.

What can I do with my KSM?​

KSM is the native token of the Kusama Network. KSM can be used for transaction fees, staking, governance, purchase of coretime, and for enabling several key functionalities on Kusama. See more information on the Chain State Values page.

KSM has utility in Kusama's OpenGov where you can vote, delegate your voting power, and place deposits for your referenda or referenda proposed by others. KSM can also enable you to participate in programs like the Decentralized Nodes program.

Kusama Gifts​

Kusama Gifts provide an easy way to:

  • Onboard friends or family who are curious about blockchain but haven’t made the leap yet.
  • Share your love of Kusama and send any amount of KSM.
  • Say ‘thank you’ or send someone tokens when you don’t know their address.
  • Get friends and family set up to participate in crowdloans.

Learn more about how you can create and send Kusama Gifts here.

While Kusama does not support smart contracts natively, building apps on it is still possible (e.g. RMRK.app). If you're interested in diving deeper into proper development, however, check out the builders guide.