Why Kusama Refuses to Die

Among today’s top gainers, I was surprised to see KSM (Kusama) on the list.

Remember that odd artifact from the early days of Polkadot? Kusama was designed as a testnet for the larger parachain ecosystem being built on Polkadot. But unlike the tokens of most test networks, Kusama’s native token actually found real demand - enough for markets to form and a price to emerge.

What’s even more interesting is that today, long after parachains on Polkadot’s main network have launched - and largely faded from attention - KSM is still trading. And it’s not trading because someone forgot to shut the network down. It’s trading because the network is still in use, and the token is needed to pay for transactions.

There are projects (like Moonriver and Karura) that launched on Kusama and never left, building their own functioning economies there. They’re nowhere near as popular as they were at the height of the Polkadot hype, but they still have committed users.

Kusama is a great example of something many people underestimate: you can’t just "turn off" a blockchain. As long as there are people using it, they will keep it alive. That’s why crypto is here to stay - even projects that started out as experiments can end up having real staying power.

And if you’re looking to get some KSM - or swap it for other crypto assets - you can find the best rates on rabbit.io.