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Kusama Parameters

Many of these parameter values can be updated via on-chain governance. If you require absolute certainty of these parameter values, it is recommended you directly check the constants by looking at the chain state and/or storage.

Periods of common actions and attributes

NOTE: Kusama generally runs 4x as fast as Polkadot, except in the time slot duration itself. See Polkadot Parameters for more details on how Kusama's parameters differ from Polkadot's.

  • Slot: 6 seconds *(generally one block per slot, although see note below)
  • Epoch: 1 hour (600 slots x 6 seconds)
  • Session: 1 hour (6 sessions per Era)
  • Era: 6 hours (3600 slots x 6 seconds)
KusamaTimeSlots*
Slot6 seconds1
Epoch1 hour600
Session1 hour600
Era6 hours3_600

*A maximum of one block per slot can be in a canonical chain. Occasionally, a slot will be without a block in the chain. Thus, the times given are estimates. See Consensus for more details.

Accounts, Identity and Crowdloans

  • The Existential Deposit is
  • The deposit required to set an Identity is
  • The minimum contribution required to participate in a crowdloan is

Governance

DemocracyTimeSlotsDescription
Voting period7 days100_800How long the public can vote on a referendum.
Launch period7 days100_800How long the public can select which proposal to hold a referendum on, i.e., every week, the highest-weighted proposal will be selected to have a referendum.
Enactment period8 days115_200Time it takes for a successful referendum to be implemented on the network.
CouncilTimeSlotsDescription
Term duration1 day14_400The length of a council member's term until the next election round.
Voting period1 day14_400The council's voting period for motions.

The Kusama Council consists of up to 19 members and up to 19 runners up.

Technical committeeTimeSlotsDescription
Cool-off period7 days604_800The time a veto from the technical committee lasts before the proposal can be submitted again.
Emergency voting period3 hours1_800The voting period after the technical committee expedites voting.

Staking, Validating, and Nominating

A maximum of 24 validators can be nominated by a nominator on Kusama.

KusamaTimeSlotsDescription
Term duration6 hours3_600The time for which a validator is in the set after being elected. Note, this duration can be shortened in the case the a validator misbehaves.
Nomination period6 hours3_600How often a new validator set is elected.
Bonding duration7 days604_800How long until your funds will be transferrable after unbonding. Note that the bonding duration is defined in eras, not directly by slots.
Slash defer duration7 days604_800Prevents overslashing and validators "escaping" and getting their nominators slashed with no repercussions to themselves. Note that the bonding duration is defined in eras, not directly by slots.

Treasury

TreasuryTimeSlotsDescription
Periods between spends6 days86_400When the treasury can spend again after spending previously.

Burn percentage is currently 0.20%, though instead of being burned this amount is temporarily redirected into the Society's treasury to fund growth.

Precision

KSM have 12 decimals of precision. In other words, 1e12 (1_000_000_000_000, or one trillion) Plancks make up a single KSM.