Crescendo Hardfork

Overview

Crescendo was activated on May 5, 2025, and is the most significant upgrade to the Kaspa network since its launch. It increased the block rate from 1 BPS to 10 BPS (blocks per second), enabling near-instant transaction confirmation.

The rusty-kaspa v1.0.0 release shipped on March 31, 2025, in preparation for the hardfork. Testnet TN11 ran at 10 BPS for approximately one year before the mainnet activation, providing extensive real-world testing.

What Changed

Block Rate: 1 BPS to 10 BPS

The headline change — Kaspa went from producing one block per second to ten. This means approximately 864,000 blocks per day (previously ~86,400), with typical blocks containing 150-250 transactions.

Bundled KIPs

Crescendo bundled several Kaspa Improvement Proposals into a single coordinated upgrade:

KIP	Name	Description
KIP-4	Sparse DAA	A sparse difficulty adjustment algorithm that works efficiently at high block rates
KIP-9	Storage Mass	Extended mass formula for better fee calculation based on UTXO storage costs
KIP-10	New Opcodes	Additional script opcodes expanding transaction programmability
KIP-13	Block Size Cap	Transient storage and block size management at higher throughput
KIP-15	Sequencing	Sequencing commitments for L2 settlement support

Additional Changes

• Payload support — blocks can carry additional data payloads
• Runtime sigops — improved signature operation counting
• k = 124 — GHOSTDAG cluster parameter updated for 10 BPS
• Max parents = 16 — blocks can reference up to 16 parent blocks
• Merge set = 248 — increased merge set limit for higher block rates

Impact

The Crescendo upgrade transformed Kaspa’s practical capabilities:

• Near-instant confirmations — transactions confirm in ~1 second
• Higher throughput — ~100,000 blocks per day with room for growth
• L2 settlement — near-real-time settlement for Layer 2 protocols like Igra’s EVM rollups
• Proven at scale — TN11 validated 10 BPS operation for a full year before mainnet deployment