Skip to content
hellokaspa
KAS/USDMARKET CAPHASHRATEBLOCK RATE10 /secBLOCK TIME100 msBLOCK REWARDCIRCULATINGMEMPOOLCONSENSUSGHOSTDAGNODEPREMINENONESUPPLY CAP28.70 B KAS
KAS/USDMARKET CAPHASHRATEBLOCK RATE10 /secBLOCK TIME100 msBLOCK REWARDCIRCULATINGMEMPOOLCONSENSUSGHOSTDAGNODEPREMINENONESUPPLY CAP28.70 B KAS
Chapter 06 — custody

Holding KAS
without a custodian

A wallet does not store coins. It stores the key that authorises spending them; the coins are entries in a ledger that thousands of nodes agree on. Everything that follows from that — why a seed phrase matters more than a password, why nobody can reset it for you, why an exchange balance is not the same asset — is the whole subject.

At a glance
Address prefixkaspa:
Smallest unit1 sompi = 1e-8 KAS
RecoverySeed phrase only
Support ticketsCannot restore keys
Self-custody
You hold the seed phrase

You can spend without anyone’s permission and nobody can freeze you. You are also the entire backup department — lose the phrase and the coins are unreachable forever, by design, with no appeal.

Hardware
Keys never leave a chip

The signing key stays on a dedicated device, so malware on your computer cannot extract it. Still self-custody, still your responsibility. The device is a safe, not a bank.

Exchange balance
An IOU, not the asset

Convenient for trading, and genuinely not the same thing as holding KAS. You hold a claim against a company. Withdrawals can be halted, accounts can be frozen, and companies fail.

The options

Pick for how you will actually use it

§ 01 — six ways to hold it

There is no best wallet, only appropriate ones. Spending money and long-term savings have opposite requirements, and most people should have both — a mobile wallet with a small balance, and something colder for the rest.

6 shown

Kaspium

iOS · Android
Verify KRC-20

The community mobile wallet most people start with. Straightforward send and receive, HD accounts, seed phrase in your hands.

Self-custodykaspium.io ↗

Kasware

Browser extension
KRC-20 aware

The extension wallet with KRC-20 awareness, which is what you need for token interfaces and L2 dApp connections.

Self-custodykasware.xyz ↗

Kaspa NG

Desktop · Web
Verify KRC-20

A desktop wallet that can talk to your own node rather than a third party's, which matters if you care about not leaking your address set.

Self-custodykaspa-ng.org ↗

Tangem

Hardware card
Verify KRC-20

A card-format hardware wallet — keys never leave the chip, and there is no screen or battery to fail.

Card-based backup model differs from seed-phrase wallets; understand it before funding.

Hardware custodytangem.com ↗

Ledger

Hardware device
Verify KRC-20

Hardware custody with KAS support through the device app ecosystem, usually paired with a third-party interface.

Confirm current KAS and KRC-20 support on Ledger's own site before buying.

Hardware custodyledger.com ↗

rusty-kaspa CLI wallet

Command line
KRC-20 partial

Ships with the node. No interface to trust, no telemetry, no vendor. The reference for anyone who wants to verify what a wallet is really doing.

Self-custodygithub.com/kaspanet/rusty-kaspa ↗
Verify these links before you trust them

These are the projects the Kaspa community uses, listed because they are the ones you will encounter. That is not an audit, an endorsement, or a guarantee that a domain has not changed hands since this page was written. Cross-check any wallet against the official Kaspa channels and the project’s own repository before you put money in it — including the entries on this page.

Before you fund anything

The boring list
that prevents
most losses

§ 02 — six steps, in order

Almost nobody loses coins to a broken protocol. They lose them to a fake download page, a seed phrase in a cloud note, or a backup nobody ever tested. None of these steps take long and all of them are irreversible if skipped.

  1. 01

    Type the domain yourself

    Do not reach a wallet through a search advert, a Telegram link, a QR code in a reply, or a message from anyone. Impersonation sites rank on paid search and look identical. Type the address, then bookmark the real one.

  2. 02

    Write the seed phrase on paper

    Not in a photo, not in a password manager’s notes field, not in a cloud document, not in a message to yourself. Anything that syncs is a copy you do not control.

  3. 03

    Send a small amount first

    Fund with a trivial amount, confirm it arrives, then send it back out. You are testing that you can spend, not just that you can receive — those are different failures.

  4. 04

    Practise the restore before you need it

    Restore the seed phrase into a fresh install of the same wallet and confirm the same address appears. A backup you have never tested is a hypothesis.

  5. 05

    Assume nobody legitimate asks

    No developer, moderator, support agent or airdrop needs your seed phrase or private key. There is no exception, no verification process, and no migration that requires it.

  6. 06

    Read the migration guidance from the source

    The KRC-20 move to native L1 assets is exactly the kind of event scammers build fake flows around. Follow instructions only from the project’s own channels, and be suspicious of urgency.

Reading a Kaspa address

Addresses begin with kaspa: followed by a long character string, and they carry a checksum — mistyping one character almost always produces an invalid address rather than somebody else’s. That is a safety net, not a guarantee. Always paste, and always check the first and last several characters against what you intended, because clipboard-hijacking malware substitutes addresses and it is the single most effective theft technique there is.

Balances are denominated internally in sompi, one hundred-millionth of a KAS. When a wallet shows eight decimal places, that is why.

KRC-20 tokens, and the migration

KRC-20 began as an inscription-style standard: token data embedded in transactions and indexed off-chain by Kasplex rather than enforced by consensus. It worked, and it was always a stopgap. With native asset support now on the base layer, tokens are migrating from the overlay to L1 — a process coordinated by Kasplex, with some tokens requiring their own steps.

This is exactly the kind of event that attracts fraud. A migration with real deadlines and real technical steps gives an attacker a plausible reason to ask you to connect a wallet or approve something unusual. Get your instructions from the project’s own channels, be suspicious of urgency, and remember that no legitimate migration ever needs your seed phrase.

For anything token-related in practice, a KRC-20-aware wallet matters — the extension wallets are furthest along here. Where this page says “verify KRC-20”, it means support may exist but was not confirmed at the time of writing, and you should check the wallet’s own documentation rather than take a directory’s word for it.

Running your own node

Every wallet that is not talking to your own node is asking somebody else what your balance is, and telling them which addresses you care about. For most people that trade-off is reasonable. If it is not reasonable for you, rusty-kaspa builds on ordinary hardware, ships a CLI wallet, and pruning keeps its storage footprint bounded even at ten blocks per second.

Node, explorer and API links are on the ecosystem page →

What a wallet cannot do

It cannot reverse a transaction. It cannot recover a lost seed phrase. It cannot stop you sending to the wrong address if that address is valid. Support cannot do any of these things either — not because they are unhelpful, but because the protocol gives them no mechanism. This is the cost of the property that makes the system work.

Common scam patterns
  • ×A "support agent" who direct-messages you first
  • ×A migration or airdrop that needs your seed phrase
  • ×A wallet download from a paid search advert
  • ×A QR code posted in a reply to a popular thread
  • ×Urgency: a deadline, a snapshot, an expiring claim
  • ×A "verification" step that asks you to sign something you cannot read
Glossary & FAQAsk the community
Chapter 06 — custody

Holding KAS
without a custodian

A wallet does not store coins. It stores the key that authorises spending them; the coins are entries in a ledger that thousands of nodes agree on. Everything that follows from that — why a seed phrase matters more than a password, why nobody can reset it for you, why an exchange balance is not the same asset — is the whole subject.

At a glance
Address prefixkaspa:
Smallest unit1 sompi = 1e-8 KAS
RecoverySeed phrase only
Support ticketsCannot restore keys
Self-custody
You hold the seed phrase

You can spend without anyone’s permission and nobody can freeze you. You are also the entire backup department — lose the phrase and the coins are unreachable forever, by design, with no appeal.

Hardware
Keys never leave a chip

The signing key stays on a dedicated device, so malware on your computer cannot extract it. Still self-custody, still your responsibility. The device is a safe, not a bank.

Exchange balance
An IOU, not the asset

Convenient for trading, and genuinely not the same thing as holding KAS. You hold a claim against a company. Withdrawals can be halted, accounts can be frozen, and companies fail.

The options

Pick for how you will actually use it

§ 01 — six ways to hold it

There is no best wallet, only appropriate ones. Spending money and long-term savings have opposite requirements, and most people should have both — a mobile wallet with a small balance, and something colder for the rest.

6 shown

Kaspium

iOS · Android
Verify KRC-20

The community mobile wallet most people start with. Straightforward send and receive, HD accounts, seed phrase in your hands.

Self-custodykaspium.io ↗

Kasware

Browser extension
KRC-20 aware

The extension wallet with KRC-20 awareness, which is what you need for token interfaces and L2 dApp connections.

Self-custodykasware.xyz ↗

Kaspa NG

Desktop · Web
Verify KRC-20

A desktop wallet that can talk to your own node rather than a third party's, which matters if you care about not leaking your address set.

Self-custodykaspa-ng.org ↗

Tangem

Hardware card
Verify KRC-20

A card-format hardware wallet — keys never leave the chip, and there is no screen or battery to fail.

Card-based backup model differs from seed-phrase wallets; understand it before funding.

Hardware custodytangem.com ↗

Ledger

Hardware device
Verify KRC-20

Hardware custody with KAS support through the device app ecosystem, usually paired with a third-party interface.

Confirm current KAS and KRC-20 support on Ledger's own site before buying.

Hardware custodyledger.com ↗

rusty-kaspa CLI wallet

Command line
KRC-20 partial

Ships with the node. No interface to trust, no telemetry, no vendor. The reference for anyone who wants to verify what a wallet is really doing.

Self-custodygithub.com/kaspanet/rusty-kaspa ↗
Verify these links before you trust them

These are the projects the Kaspa community uses, listed because they are the ones you will encounter. That is not an audit, an endorsement, or a guarantee that a domain has not changed hands since this page was written. Cross-check any wallet against the official Kaspa channels and the project’s own repository before you put money in it — including the entries on this page.

Before you fund anything

The boring list
that prevents
most losses

§ 02 — six steps, in order

Almost nobody loses coins to a broken protocol. They lose them to a fake download page, a seed phrase in a cloud note, or a backup nobody ever tested. None of these steps take long and all of them are irreversible if skipped.

  1. 01

    Type the domain yourself

    Do not reach a wallet through a search advert, a Telegram link, a QR code in a reply, or a message from anyone. Impersonation sites rank on paid search and look identical. Type the address, then bookmark the real one.

  2. 02

    Write the seed phrase on paper

    Not in a photo, not in a password manager’s notes field, not in a cloud document, not in a message to yourself. Anything that syncs is a copy you do not control.

  3. 03

    Send a small amount first

    Fund with a trivial amount, confirm it arrives, then send it back out. You are testing that you can spend, not just that you can receive — those are different failures.

  4. 04

    Practise the restore before you need it

    Restore the seed phrase into a fresh install of the same wallet and confirm the same address appears. A backup you have never tested is a hypothesis.

  5. 05

    Assume nobody legitimate asks

    No developer, moderator, support agent or airdrop needs your seed phrase or private key. There is no exception, no verification process, and no migration that requires it.

  6. 06

    Read the migration guidance from the source

    The KRC-20 move to native L1 assets is exactly the kind of event scammers build fake flows around. Follow instructions only from the project’s own channels, and be suspicious of urgency.

Reading a Kaspa address

Addresses begin with kaspa: followed by a long character string, and they carry a checksum — mistyping one character almost always produces an invalid address rather than somebody else’s. That is a safety net, not a guarantee. Always paste, and always check the first and last several characters against what you intended, because clipboard-hijacking malware substitutes addresses and it is the single most effective theft technique there is.

Balances are denominated internally in sompi, one hundred-millionth of a KAS. When a wallet shows eight decimal places, that is why.

KRC-20 tokens, and the migration

KRC-20 began as an inscription-style standard: token data embedded in transactions and indexed off-chain by Kasplex rather than enforced by consensus. It worked, and it was always a stopgap. With native asset support now on the base layer, tokens are migrating from the overlay to L1 — a process coordinated by Kasplex, with some tokens requiring their own steps.

This is exactly the kind of event that attracts fraud. A migration with real deadlines and real technical steps gives an attacker a plausible reason to ask you to connect a wallet or approve something unusual. Get your instructions from the project’s own channels, be suspicious of urgency, and remember that no legitimate migration ever needs your seed phrase.

For anything token-related in practice, a KRC-20-aware wallet matters — the extension wallets are furthest along here. Where this page says “verify KRC-20”, it means support may exist but was not confirmed at the time of writing, and you should check the wallet’s own documentation rather than take a directory’s word for it.

Running your own node

Every wallet that is not talking to your own node is asking somebody else what your balance is, and telling them which addresses you care about. For most people that trade-off is reasonable. If it is not reasonable for you, rusty-kaspa builds on ordinary hardware, ships a CLI wallet, and pruning keeps its storage footprint bounded even at ten blocks per second.

Node, explorer and API links are on the ecosystem page →

What a wallet cannot do

It cannot reverse a transaction. It cannot recover a lost seed phrase. It cannot stop you sending to the wrong address if that address is valid. Support cannot do any of these things either — not because they are unhelpful, but because the protocol gives them no mechanism. This is the cost of the property that makes the system work.

Common scam patterns
  • ×A "support agent" who direct-messages you first
  • ×A migration or airdrop that needs your seed phrase
  • ×A wallet download from a paid search advert
  • ×A QR code posted in a reply to a popular thread
  • ×Urgency: a deadline, a snapshot, an expiring claim
  • ×A "verification" step that asks you to sign something you cannot read
Glossary & FAQAsk the community