Layer 1 blockchain
Casper Network ticker CSPR
Summary
Casper Network mainnet began on 31 March 2021 and is stewarded by the Casper Association, a Swiss non-profit. Since the Casper 2.0 upgrade on 6 May 2025 it runs Zug consensus, which replaced Highway. In each round a leader proposes a block, validators sign echo messages, and the round is committed when validators holding more than two-thirds of the era's validator weight vote yes; the block and its ancestors are then final, they are executed, and validators publish finality signatures over the result. Up to 100 validators, the top bidders in a stake auction, validate each era of about two hours, weighted by their own plus delegated CSPR. Slashing is disabled: a validator caught equivocating is skipped as leader, risks eviction and loss of rewards, and cannot take part in later eras. The Casper Association's public node reported protocol version 2.2.2 on 2026-09-29. 234517181921
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainIndependent proof-of-stake chain with its own validator set; it does not settle to another chain. Its node software, WebAssembly execution engine, global state and staking auction are Casper's own. The name Casper Network is used by the Casper Association, and CSPR is the native token.
- Settlement family
- Its own design
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- The node picks each round's leader pseudo-randomly in proportion to validator weight, and skips validators excluded for equivocating. Seats come from the auction system contract: at each era's switch block, bids plus delegations are ranked and the top 100 validate in the era after next. The current mainnet chainspec sets a 500 CSPR minimum bid, a 500 CSPR minimum delegation and up to 1,200 delegators per validator; validators set their own delegation rate.
- Fork choice
- No open weight-based chain selection. A proposal may build on a parent from an earlier round only when every round in between has been made skippable by a quorum of no votes, so two conflicting blocks cannot both be finalized while faulty weight stays at or below one-third. The docs say that if more than one-third of validators double-signed after finality, nodes could disagree and the network would shut down and need a manual restart.
Qualifications
- Settlement family · Partial. Recorded as other. Casper's own terms: the Casper node (casper-node, written in Rust) with its own execution engine for WebAssembly contracts and session code, a global state held as a Merkle trie, Zug consensus and a system auction contract that picks validators; it is not built from another chain's client.
- Finality · Partial. Recorded as other. Casper's own terms: Zug finality. A round is committed when validators holding more than two-thirds of era weight vote yes, which finalizes its block and ancestors; blocks are executed after consensus and validators then publish finality signatures. Slashing is disabled, so stake behind a finality fault is not destroyed; validators caught equivocating risk eviction and loss of rewards and cannot take part in later eras.
- Slashing · Partial. The docs say slashing for equivocation is currently disabled but may be reactivated; the mainnet chainspec still prices a slash entry point in the auction contract. Validators caught equivocating risk eviction and loss of rewards, are skipped as leaders and cannot take part in later eras, and validators silent for a whole era are marked inactive until they reactivate their bid.
- Dynamic gas pricing · Partial. Casper 2.0 added a gas price multiplier that changes by one each era with block use, and the docs describe a range of 1 to 3 on mainnet. The 2.2.2 mainnet chainspec sets both the minimum and maximum to 1, so gas currently costs one mote per unit.
- Addressable entities · Partial. Casper 2.0 node software defines addressable entities, which would store accounts and contracts as one record type, and the current docs use entity terms. The 2.2.2 mainnet chainspec keeps the migration switch off (turning it on is one-way), so mainnet accounts and contracts keep their earlier record forms.
- Second virtual machine · Partial. Casper 2.0 added support for more than one virtual machine, and the Association said VM 2.0 would activate with Casper 2.1. The 2.2.2 mainnet chainspec still enables only the first Casper VM.
- Validator votes · Partial. Validators have voted on numbered CVV proposals since October 2024; for vote 008 in February 2026 they voted by sending voting tokens to for, against or abstain addresses on mainnet. Results take effect only through a later coordinated protocol upgrade, as with fee burning in Casper 2.1 and the one-time issuance and 6% plus 2% issuance split in 2.2.0; the protocol does not enact a vote by itself.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Security Contested
- Gives up
- Open validator membership and liveness under heavy faults. Only the top 100 bidders validate in any era, and blocks stop when faulty or offline validators hold more than one-third of weight; the docs say a finality fault would need a manual restart. Blocks are at least 8 seconds apart on mainnet.Casper's own overview says the network solves the scalability trilemma and is optimized for security, decentralization and high throughput at once; reading that as all three corners is contested. With slashing disabled, misbehaving stake is not destroyed, which weakens the stake-at-risk side of the security argument. Validator count and stake concentration were not measured in this review.
- Full node at home
- Demanding 2141517Casper's docs recommend 4 CPU cores, 32 GB of RAM and an SSD of 500 GB for a node that keeps recent data (they add that current use is well below that, so operators can start smaller and grow) or 2 TB for an archive node, on Ubuntu or Debian, and a CPU with AVX2 and SHA extensions (AMD Zen or Intel Ice Lake or newer) for the official binaries. New nodes normally fast-sync from an operator-supplied trusted block hash and download only recent global state. Validating needs a winning auction bid for one of 100 seats.
- Throughput claims
- Theoretical peak 172023Theoretical peak; not comparable across chains or with observed load.Per-block caps, not a rate: 325 native transfers, 325 staking transactions, 1 install, and 1, 2 or 40 Wasm transactions by size lane; blocks at least 8 seconds apart.Casper publishes no transactions-per-second figure; these are configuration limits read by this review, not a measured rate. Blocks can take longer than the minimum block time, and each block is also bounded by its gas limit, byte size and approval count. Limits change with each upgrade's chainspec: the 2.1.1 release notes say block capacity was halved when block time was halved. No observed transaction rate or block interval was measured in this review.
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | No hash-time-locked or other trust-minimized swap mechanism was documented for Casper. A transaction has one initiating account whose own weighted keys authorize it, and WebAssembly contracts could host swap logic, but these are building blocks and no mainnet swap service was reviewed. 911 |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not assessed. Contract-level messages, added in Casper 2.0, store only a checksum of each message in global state, while the payload goes out once on nodes' event streams and is not kept by the protocol, so readers cannot count on retrieving the data later. ProofLayer, which the Casper Association presents as anchoring proofs to Casper, was not shown working on mainnet in the reviewed page. 121340 |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Protocol, limited: validators sign finality signatures over each executed block, block headers commit to the global state root, and state queries return Merkle proofs, so a client holding a trusted block hash and the era's validator weights can check blocks and state values without executing history. Fast sync starts from an operator-supplied trusted hash, and the chainspec requires strict finality signatures on blocks since 1.5.0. Limited: no maintained light client was reviewed, and a verifier must start from a trusted block hash and track validator changes era by era. 310121517 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel system on Casper was found in the reviewed documentation; absence was not verified. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Accounts carry weighted associated keys with separate thresholds for sending transactions and for key management, and WebAssembly session code and stored contracts, which can be upgraded, set the conditions for moving the purses they control. 91116 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | No protocol feature for a sender to reclaim or cancel a payment was found. Casper's docs present weighted associated keys as account security and recovery: keys with enough weight for key management can remove a lost key and add a new one. That is key management by keys that already hold authority, a plain threshold, which this row does not count as a recovery path. The same page warns that recovery is impossible once too few keys remain for key management, because Casper does not support what it calls inactive recovery. 9 |
| Rollups | Unknown | No rollup anchored to Casper mainnet was found in the reviewed documentation; absence was not verified. |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not found. CEP-3009, used by the csprUSD stablecoin, lets a token holder sign a one-time transfer authorization that a facilitator submits; that authorizes a single payment, not one side of a trade that settles both legs together. 30 |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | ThinCSPR.trade | The Casper Association describes CSPR.trade as a Casper-native exchange built by Odra and MAKE on the Uniswap V2 automated market maker model and audited by Halborn; it opened on testnet at the end of 2025, and the Association reported it launched by February 2026. DeFiLlama's protocol list includes no Casper protocols, so liquidity and volume were not verified. 262739 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | UnknowncsprUSD (Sarson Funds) | Neither Circle's USDC list nor Tether's supported-protocol list includes Casper. csprUSD, a dollar stablecoin from Sarson Funds first launched in 2024, is being upgraded as the ecosystem's standard dollar token according to a July 2026 Association post; its mainnet contract, supply and reserve reporting were not verified. 303132 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | No algorithmic stablecoin on Casper was found; absence was not verified. |
| Bridges | UnknownAstralBeam (MAKE Group; public testnet) | AstralBeam, a bridge from MAKE Group between Casper and Ethereum, Base, Polygon and Robinhood Chain, was on public testnet at review, with mainnet planned for October 2026 per its own site. No other live bridge or wrapped CSPR on another chain was verified. Risk: AstralBeam locks tokens on the source chain and mints tokens on Casper once at least three of five relayers attest, so users would trust that relayer threshold and the bridge contracts, not Casper's validators. A wrapped asset is only as sound as the bridge that minted it. 2829 |
| Block explorers | ThinCSPR.live (MAKE) | Casper's documentation names CSPR.live, which it calls one of the most popular Casper explorers, and names no other; the Association credits MAKE with its releases and its 2025 redesign. No second mainnet explorer was verified, and others were not reviewed. Listing is not a quality or completeness check, and explorer data is provider-indexed. 2526 |
| Hardware wallets | Established in the ecosystemLedger | See custody rows: Ledger lists Casper in its own wallet app with a Casper device app and routes staking through CSPR.live; Trezor states that it does not support Casper Network. 333738 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Native supportSame as native: Unknown | Can: Add a Casper account in Ledger Wallet (Ledger Live 2.73.1 or later) with the Casper device app and send or receive CSPR, per Casper's guide and Ledger's Casper page Can: Delegate CSPR while signing on the device by connecting it to CSPR.live, per Ledger's staking page Cannot: Stake from inside Ledger Wallet, as far as Ledger's own staking page shows: it sends users to CSPR.live to delegateLower confidence: Ledger Wallet's current code keeps Casper behind a feature switch that is off by default in code, and the remote switch setting was not read. The readable Ledger statements are its Casper coin page (modified 2024-01-10), which says CSPR can be sent and received in Ledger Live, and its staking page (modified 2026-06-24), which tells users to install the Casper device app from Ledger Wallet. Ledger's published currency list includes Casper with CSPR at nine decimals and a Casper device app. 3334353638 |
| Trezor | None foundSame as native: No | Cannot: Manage CSPR in Trezor Suite; Trezor's Casper Network page says Trezor does not currently support Casper NetworkWhether any third-party Casper wallet signs with a Trezor device was not checked. 37 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Casper Network yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Reviewed Sep 29, 2026 Next review due Oct 9, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
-
AstralBeam bridge between Casper and other chains introduced on public testnet
The Casper Association announced AstralBeam, a bridge from MAKE Group connecting Casper with Ethereum, Base, Polygon and Robinhood Chain, with a planned link to the T-REX Network's compliance ledger. Tokens are locked on the source chain and minted on Casper once at least three of five relayers attest. AstralBeam's site says its public testnet is live and mainnet is planned for October 2026.
- Implementation:public testnet
- Release:testnet announced
- Activation:mainnet planned for October 2026 per the AstralBeam site; not live at review
Sources: Casper Association — AstralBeam Connects Casper to the Cross-Chain Market for Tokenized RWAs (external site) · AstralBeam (MAKE Group) — AstralBeam: Move value across worlds (external site) · Casper Association — Killing the Honeypot: How AstralBeam Delivers Secure Cross-Chain Infrastructure for RWAs (external site) · Casper Association — The latest from the Casper Association (news index) (external site)
-
csprUSD stablecoin to be upgraded as Casper's standard dollar settlement token
The Casper Association said csprUSD, a dollar stablecoin first launched by Sarson Funds in 2024, is being upgraded with a new contract built for Casper 2.0 and CEP-3009 signed transfer authorizations, to serve as the default settlement asset for Casper's x402 payment facilitator.
- Proposal:upgrade announced by the Casper Association
- Implementation:new contract described; address not published in the post
- Release:not confirmed
- Activation:not confirmed on mainnet
Sources: Casper Association — Introducing csprUSD: The Stablecoin of the Machine Economy (external site) · Casper Association — Sarson Funds csprUSD Stablecoin Live on Casper Network Testnet (external site) · Casper Association — The latest from the Casper Association (news index) (external site)
-
Casper node 2.2.2 security release active on mainnet after the 2.2.1 fix
Casper published node 2.2.1 on 2026-05-26, which rejects transactions initiated by the system account, and 2.2.2 on 2026-07-01, described only as a security release. The 2.2.2 mainnet chainspec activates at era 22931, and the Casper Association's public node reported protocol 2.2.2 on 2026-09-29.
- Implementation:casper-node v2.2.1 and v2.2.2
- Release:released 2026-05-26 and 2026-07-01
- Activation:2.2.2 active: activation era 22931 in the chainspec, and a public node reported protocol 2.2.2 on 2026-09-29
Sources: Casper Network (GitHub) — casper-node v2.2.1 release notes (external site) · Casper Network (GitHub) — casper-node v2.2.2 release notes (external site) · Casper Network (casper-node repository, GitHub) — Casper mainnet chainspec, protocol version 2.2.2 (external site) · Casper Association — Casper Association public mainnet node, JSON-RPC info_get_status (read 2026-09-29) (external site) · Casper Network (GitHub) — casper-node releases Atom feed (external site)
-
Casper 2.2.0 activated with a one-time issuance and a 2% ecosystem share of yearly issuance
Casper mainnet upgraded to 2.2.0 at era 21742 on 23 March 2026, applying validator votes CVV006 and CVV008. The upgrade minted 4,763,091,158 CSPR once, held in a treasury wallet and released over two years; sent a quarter of new issuance, 2% of supply a year, to an ecosystem sustainability purse; added a minimum delegation rate setting, set to zero for now; cut the minimum validator bid to 500 CSPR; and fixed checks on delegation limits.
- Proposal:CVV008 posted 2026-02-22; vote held 23 to 25 February 2026 and passed
- Implementation:casper-node v2.2.0
- Release:released 2026-03-10
- Activation:activated 2026-03-23 at era 21742 per the Casper Association
Sources: Casper Association — Casper 2.2.0 Goes Live on Mainnet (external site) · Casper Network (GitHub) — casper-node v2.2.0 release notes (external site) · Casper Network forum — [CVV008] Proposal: Securing Validator Economics and Network Sustainability (external site) · Casper Association — Governance Vote #008 Passes: Securing Validator Economics and Network Sustainability (external site) · Casper Network (casper-node repository, GitHub) — Casper mainnet chainspec, protocol version 2.2.2 (external site)
-
Casper 2.1 released: 8-second minimum block time and burning of all transaction fees
Casper node release 2.1.0, a configuration update, halved the minimum block time to 8 seconds and switched transaction fees from payment to the block proposer to burning, which validators had approved in vote CVV005. Release 2.1.1 followed on 2025-12-01 with a fix to delegation minimums and settings that halve block capacity while doubling time windows. The Casper Association says Casper 2.1 is live on mainnet.
- Proposal:fee burning approved by validator vote CVV005 (proposal posted 2025-09-17)
- Implementation:configured in casper-node v2.1.0, with binary fixes in v2.1.1
- Release:released 2025-11-18 (v2.1.0) and 2025-12-01 (v2.1.1)
- Activation:live on mainnet per Casper Association posts; activation era not confirmed; the 2.2.2 mainnet chainspec carries both settings
Sources: Casper Network (GitHub) — casper-node v2.1.0 release notes (external site) · Casper Network (GitHub) — casper-node v2.1.1 release notes (external site) · Casper Association — Casper 2.1: Faster and More Efficient for the Real World (external site) · Casper Network forum — [CVV005] Proposal: Enable Burning Mechanism (external site) · Casper Association — Casper End-of-Year X Space Recap: 2025 in Review, New DEX Announced Live, and the Path Forward (external site) · Casper Network (casper-node repository, GitHub) — Casper mainnet chainspec, protocol version 2.2.2 (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Casper Network through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- Current validator count, stake distribution and the largest validators' shares were not read: the explorer renders in the browser and this review made one read of the public node.
- Casper 2.1's exact mainnet activation date and era were not confirmed from a primary source; Association posts say it is live, and the current chainspec carries its block-time and fee-burning settings.
- The docs describe a 1 to 3 gas price multiplier on mainnet, but the 2.2.2 chainspec fixes it at 1; when the range was set to 1 was not traced.
- The bonding guide still gives a 10,000 CSPR minimum bid, while the 2.2.2 chainspec and the v2.2.0 release notes give 500 CSPR.
- CEP-97 proposes lowering the minimum balance and minimum transfer from 2.5 to 0.1 CSPR, and the Association's July 2026 post says it was adopted, but the 2.2.2 mainnet chainspec running at review still sets both at 2.5 CSPR; when the change takes effect was not established.
- csprUSD's mainnet contract, supply and reserve reporting were not verified.
- CSPR.trade liquidity, volume and audit report were not reviewed; DeFiLlama does not track Casper.
- AstralBeam was on public testnet at review; other bridges and wrapped CSPR on other chains were not searched.
- Whether the Kairos repository published by Casper Association R&D (it includes zero-knowledge prover code) runs as a rollup on mainnet was not verified.
- Ledger Wallet's remote feature-switch setting for Casper was not read.
- No light client implementation, swap mechanism, channel system, reversible transfer or data publication service was verified; absence was not exhaustively checked.
- Whether slashing will be reactivated, and how the auction contract's slash path works in code, were not reviewed.
- Actual database size of a node at review was not measured.
- Where the one-time issuance of March 2026 was staked or moved was not traced on chain.
- How the Zug leader seed is derived was not reviewed beyond the leader-selection code.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 29, 2026 Next check due Oct 29, 2026.
- What is Casper? (external site)
- Consensus in a Casper Network (external site)
- Simple and Fast Consensus with Zug (external site)
- From Weakly-terminating Binary Agreement and Reliable Broadcast to Atomic Broadcast (external site)
- Consensus Economics (external site)
- Staking (external site)
- Gas and Resources (external site)
- Dynamic Gas Pricing on Mainnet (external site)
- Casper Network design (external site)
- Global State (external site)
- Accounts and Cryptographic Keys (external site)
- Contract-Level Events (external site)
- CEP-88: Contract-level messages (external site)
- Recommended Hardware Specifications (external site)
- Fast Sync (external site)
- Casper v2.0 Release Notes (external site)
- Casper mainnet chainspec, protocol version 2.2.2 (external site)
- Casper production chainspec, protocol version 1.0.0 (genesis) (external site)
- consensus/leader_sequence.rs (tag v2.2.2) (external site)
- casper-node v2.1.1 release notes (external site)
- Casper 2.0 Goes Live on Mainnet, Positioning Casper Network for the Real-World Asset Era (external site)
- Casper 2.2.0 Goes Live on Mainnet (external site)
- Casper 2.1: Faster and More Efficient for the Real World (external site)
- Casper Association public mainnet node, JSON-RPC info_get_status (read 2026-09-29) (external site)
- Block Explorers (external site)
- Casper End-of-Year X Space Recap: 2025 in Review, New DEX Announced Live, and the Path Forward (external site)
- Governance Vote #008 Passes: Securing Validator Economics and Network Sustainability (external site)
- AstralBeam: Move value across worlds (external site)
- AstralBeam Connects Casper to the Cross-Chain Market for Tokenized RWAs (external site)
- Introducing csprUSD: The Stablecoin of the Machine Economy (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- Supported Protocols and Integration Guidelines (external site)
- Casper Network Wallet (external site)
- Casper Network Staking (external site)
- @ledgerhq/cryptoassets 13.56.0 currency list (external site)
- currencyCasper feature switch in Ledger Wallet code (declared without a value, so off by default) (external site)
- Casper Network wallet (external site)
- Using Ledger and Ledger Live (external site)
- DeFiLlama protocols API (external site)
- ProofLayer: Modular Proof Infrastructure (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding