$KAS down 90%: holders still buying?

Hey, welcome to Kaspa Daily Pulse, here's what the Kaspa community's been buzzing about today.

First up, adoption and marketing dominated the conversation. Community members questioned why Kaspa appears to have no formal marketing department, with one person joking that they went outside and saw no Kaspa billboard. Others referenced an indirect quote attributed to YS suggesting that technology should prevail without traditional marketing. The response was pretty blunt: great technology still needs users. Several holders clearly feel that Kaspa’s technical progress is not translating into enough public awareness or demand.

That anxiety fed into today’s broader sentiment, which was heavily bearish. People described Kaspa as being down roughly ninety percent from its all-time high, compared their potential returns with the reported one hundred and fifty to two hundred times gains enjoyed by some early holders, and worried that newer buyers might be lucky to see five times. One participant floated buying back in, arguing that a return to twenty cents would mean an eight-times gain from their implied entry point. Others said they were still buying, including plans to acquire more KAS on Friday. So yes, there is frustration... but conviction has not disappeared.

The most substantive technical discussion focused on Kaspa’s competitive edge. Some participants argued that Kaspa could become the most secure and decentralized place to build applications that may already exist elsewhere. Their proposed strategy was simple: attract developers first, then let adoption follow. There was also debate around coordination markets and MEV. One example mentioned Kron, where swaps are described as native but processed through the app, with claims that sandwiching may still be possible. The concern was that users might not directly benefit from the layer-one design if app-level processing introduces familiar problems.

The community also discussed Kaspa’s emission structure. One member argued that cutting rewards implies an expectation that adoption and transaction activity will eventually compensate miners. The rough window suggested in chat was two to three years, after which weak adoption could become a serious concern. That was not presented as an official deadline, but it captures the urgency holders are feeling.

Finally, there was a small leadership detail from a recent podcast: YS reportedly referred to MS as Kaspa’s CTO. That prompted jokes about who assigns titles, but also reinforced a sense that the project’s technical leadership remains the center of attention.

The mood today was rough, skeptical, and impatient... yet people are still holding, buying, and watching the builders.

That's it for today's pulse. Let's see what tomorrow brings. Catch you then.