Hello Kaspians!

Welcome to the first release of the Kaspa Weekly newsletter! Before we begin, we'd like to thank you for registering, we've reached almost 150 subscribers! Anyway, let us tell you what we'll be mentioning today.

👨‍💻 Progress on the Crescendo network upgrade
📔 Progress on the Igra Labs L2
🌏 Kaspa at the Crypto Expo Europe event in Romania
🧠 Kaspa's Eleven
📱 New Wallet Listing Kaspa

Crescendo 👨‍💻

The absolutely amazing Rusty Kaspa developers have made significant progress on the development of the network update recently. Michael Sutton and coderofstuff have recently tested the upgrade activation on a devnet (basically, a local Kaspa test network). Ori Newman is performing code review for the hard fork's activation logic.

The timeline that shows planned release and activation dates can be tracked on a website created by Kaspador. Right now, an event called Feature Freeze has happened, which means no further pull requests will be accepted that are related to the network upgrade. Put it simply, all code in regard to the Crescendo upgrade is considered finished, and no new changes or additions will be accepted. The remaining time until the activation will be spent reviewing and testing that code.

When testing on the internal devnet, the developers have identified an issue regarding the smoothness of the pruning period transition, which has been fixed already (these guys are fast! 🚀)

The ETA for the Testnet 10 node release is Tuesday, March 4, 2025, and the transition is going to happen either on March 6th or March 8th, currently being voted on in the official Kaspa discord server. You can learn more about these recent updates in the discord, or on the latest tweet.

Kaspa Layer 2 - Igra Labs 📔

Recently, the developers over at Igra Labs shared plenty of information about how the Kaspa L2 they're building will function, as well as shared some sneak peeks from their testing, which showed the first test transactions on the second layer, they have also posted a thread on X, sharing some technical information, mentioning MEV resistance and security.

Kaspa at Crypto Expo Europe 🌏

Kaspians from the around the world have attended the Crypto Expo Europe event, key initiatives in the Kaspa Ecosystem were also there, including the Kaspa Ecosystem Foundation and Kasplex.

Kaspa's presence most certainly did not go unnoticed with Kaspa-marked coffee cups and napkins, as well as an on-stage presentation about decentralization. Put it simply, Kaspa was everywhere! Looking for pictures? KEF has made a thread on X with a plethora of photos from the event! We've included some photos at the end of the newsletter as well 👀

Kaspa's Eleven 🧠

Say hello to Kaspa's Eleven. It's an educational series, which aims to break down Kaspa’s infamous Battle Card into bite-sized insights, which you can use in presentations or share on socials. It's a great way to learn about Kaspa's Features. Right now, you can learn about speed and instant confirmations on Kaspa's X profile.

New Wallet Listing Kaspa

The team over at Xodex is working on a new wallet, which supports Kaspa and KRC20 tokens. Right now, the wallet is in closed beta, and it is a Telegram mini-app with future plans to make it multi-platform. Kaspa Weekly, along with other Kaspians were invited to test it, and let us tell you, the user experience is absolutely amazing!

According to their website, the wallet is secured using various techniques, such as sharding or MPC. At the moment, only basic functionality like sending or receiving funds is available.

We've got a chance to talk with the team, and they said that they are currently focused on building a secure and user-friendly base and that the other features (that is, trading, and AI powered alpha generation and trade execution, as well as additional networks) will come as the time goes on. The open beta is scheduled to start on the 3rd of March, which will allow them to collect valuable feedback before officially releasing the product to the public.

New Kaspa Merchants 🏦

Looking to spend your Kaspa? Say hello to two new merchants that accept it!

Rotisserie Chicken in Vilnius

Latino Viščiukas MB is the first Latin American Rotisserie Chicken in Vilnius, sounds delicious? Well, it can get even better with the discounts they're offering if you choose to pay with Kaspa, up to 20%!

New Kaspa Merch Store

BUCKS is more than just an online store. At its core is a marketplace designed to connect users who want to use Kaspa as a payment method. Come to bucks.fyi and discover goods and services, pay with crypto, support entrepreneurs who accept Kaspa, and become part of a new digital economy!

Kaspa is 6th Most Posted Altcoin in February on X

According to AltsDaddy, Kaspa is the 6th Top Posted Altcoin, this shows how engaged and active the Kaspa community is in sharing the word about the innovative technology and welcoming community behind it.

Photos from Crypto Expo Europe

Thanks Ashton for providing the photos! ❤️

And that's it for this week's release of Kaspa Weekly! We hope you all had an amazing week and a good read, stay tuned for the second release next week, thank you for reading!