Kusama and Polkadot are independent, standalone networks built on similar codebases but with different priorities. Kusama is wild and fast; great for bold experimentation and early-stage deployment. Polkadot is more conservative, prioritizing stability and dependability.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What the two networks have in common
Kusama was released as an early version of the same code to be used in Polkadot, which means they share the same underlying architecture.
Both Polkadot and Kusama have:
- Nominated Proof of Stake (NPoS) system;
- Parachains connected to the Relay chain;
- Parachains talking to each other and to the Relay chain via XCM;
- Forkless upgrades that don't require validators to upgrade in advance;
- On-chain governance that gives every DOT or KSM owner a say in how the network will change.
Key differences
| POLKADOT | KUSAMA |
| High security | Low barriers to entry for parachain deployment |
| High stability | Low bond requirements for validators and parachains |
| More conservative governance and upgrade | Latest technology |
| High validator rewards | Low slashing penalties |
| Fast iteration |
| Existential deposit: 1 DOT | Existential deposit: 0.000333333 KSM |
| Staking |
| Minimum stake: 250 DOT | Minimum stake: 0.1 KSM |
| Unbonding and slash defer: 28 days | Unbonding and slash defer: 7 days |
| Fast-unstaking: Deposit 1 DOT | Fast-unstaking: Deposit 0.33333 KSM |
| Era: 24 hours, Epoch: 4 hours | Era: 6 hours, Epoch: 1 hour |
| Crowdloans |
| Deprecated in favor of Agile Coretime |
| Proxies |
Deposit base: 20.008 DOT
Additional deposit per proxy: 0.033 DOT | Deposit base: 0.666933 KSM
Additional deposit per proxy: 0.001099 KSM |
| Identity |
On People parachain:
Deposit base: 0.20017 DOT
Per encoded byte of information: 0.00001 DOT | On People parachain:
Deposit base: 0.006672333321 KSM Per encoded byte of information: 0.000000333333 KSM |
| Deposit per sub-account: 0.20053 DOT | Deposit per sub-account: 0.066667 KSM |
| Multisig |
Deposit base: 20.088 DOT
Additional deposit per signatory: 0.032 DOT | Deposit base: 0.669600 KSM
Additional deposit per signatory: 0.0010607 KSM |
| Democracy |
OpenGov | OpenGov |
Deposit to create proposal: From 1 DOT | Deposit to create proposal: From 0.033333 KSM |
Periods depending on the track:
Decision, 7 - 28 days
Confirm, 10 minutes - 2 days
Min. enactment, 10 minutes - 1 day | Periods depending on the track:
Decision, 7 - 14 days
Confirm, 10 minutes - 1 day
Min. enactment, 10 minutes - 1 day |
Use cases
Kusama is the "canary network" for Polkadot. It is not a testnet and has an economic value. All new things come to Kusama first to be tried in a live, fully decentralized, and community-controlled network with real-world conditions and lower stakes.
Kusama may be the perfect environment for ambitious experiments with new ideas and innovations in areas like governance, incentives, monetary policy, and DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations). Future upgrades to the Polkadot runtime will likely be deployed to Kusama before Polkadot. This way, not only will we be able to see how these new technologies and features will perform under real-world conditions, but teams who have deployed to both networks will also get an advanced look at how their own technology will perform under those upgrades.
Polkadot is and always will be the primary network for deploying enterprise-level applications and those that entail high-value transactions requiring bank-level security, stability, and robustness. It can also be an upgrade path for early-stage applications.
Many projects will maintain parachains on both networks, experimenting and testing new technologies and features on Kusama before deploying them to Polkadot. Some teams will decide just to stay on Kusama. Projects that require high-throughput but don't necessarily require bank-like security, such as some gaming, social networking, and content distribution applications, are particularly good candidates for this use case.
What's next?
Over time, Polkadot and Kusama networks will evolve independently. Their respective communities will decide whether the networks will be converging or diverging. Governance on both Polkadot and Kusama is decentralized and permissionless, and everyone who owns the native token (DOT for Polkadot and KSM for Kusama) has a say in how the network is run.
