Kaspa Returned 23,000% from its Lows. ZKP Is Targeting the Same Trajectory – But Faster

In the rearview mirror, every massive crypto winner looks obvious. Of course, Kaspa (KAS) was going to run 23,000% from its 2022 lows. It solved the blockchain trilemmas speed constraints, launched fairly without venture capital interference, and built a die-hard community of miners and engineers.

But in real-time, Kaspa didnt look obvious. It looked quiet. It looked complex. It was an infrastructure project trading in the shadow of louder, hype-driven tokens. By the time the broader market understood what Kaspa was, a fundamental repricing of Layer-1 technology, the early entry was gone.

As the market rotates in January 2026, analysts are hunting for the next asset that fits this specific profile: a foundational Layer-1 solving a critical industry bottleneck, launching with fair tokenomics, and trading pre-hype.

The asset increasingly appearing in these conversations is Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP).

While Kaspa capitalized on the structural demand for privacy in an AI-dominated world. Thanks to an aggressive supply-burn mechanism active in Stage 2, it may be positioned to traverse its repricing curve faster than its predecessor.

The Anatomy of a 23,000% Move

To understand the bull case for ZKP, one must first dissect why Kaspa succeeded where thousands failed. Kaspa lacked a marketing budget and celebrity endorsements. It had three structural advantages:

• Fair Launch: No VCs dumping unlocked tokens.
• Innovation: It solved a real engineering problem (Proof-of-Work scalability) rather than printing a copycat chain.
• Organic Price Discovery: Valuation grew in lockstep with network hash rate, creating a high floor.

Most projects in 2026 fail the “Kaspa Test.” They are either heavily venture-backed (creating sell pressure) or technologically redundant.

ZKP is the rare exception that passes.

ZKP: The “Kaspa” of Privacy Infrastructure

Zero Knowledge Proof mirrors the Kaspa setup but applies it to the definitive problem of 2026: Data Privacy for Artificial Intelligence.

Just as 2022 focused on making blockchains faster, 2026 focuses on making them private. As AI models ingest the worlds medical and biometric data, the ability to verify computations without exposing raw data has become the “holy grail” of digital infrastructure. ZKPs use zero-knowledge cryptography to enable verification and proof of truth without compromising privacy.

But the comparison to Kaspa goes beyond utility. It is rooted in how the project was built.

Kaspa was famous for having no pre-allocation. ZKP takes this a step further with its Initial Coin Auction (ICA). There are no private rounds. No insiders got in early at a discount. Every participant in the daily auction pays the same effective price. This eliminates the “VC overhang” that suppresses prices for most modern Layer-1s.

Furthermore, ZKP is not a whitepaper promise. The team deployed over $100 million of internal capital to build the network, testnet, and four-layer architecture the first token was ever sold. They infused $17 million into hardware manufacturing for “Proof Pods” and $5 million to acquire the zkp.com domain. Like Kaspa, ZKP is entering the market as a finished engine, not a concept car.

Why ZKP Could Be “Faster”: The Stage 2 Burn

Where ZKP diverges from the Kaspa trajectory, and potentially accelerates past it, is in its supply mechanics.

Kaspa relied on natural mining emission reductions (halvings) to tighten supply over the years. ZKP is tightening supply daily.

The project is currently in Stage 2 of its presale auction. This is critical for two reasons:

• Capped Daily Supply: The daily issuance has dropped to 190 million ZKP. This is a hard cap.
• The Burn Mechanic: Crucially, any tokens not allocated in the daily window are permanently burned.

This creates a “use it or lose it” dynamic that Kaspa never had. In a traditional mining chain, unmined blocks are just mined later. In ZKPs auction, unallocated supply disappears forever. This deflationary pressure is programmatic. If demand remains constant while supply steps down through the 17 stages, the clearing price is mathematically forced upward.

This mechanism drives repricing. It doesnt rely on market sentiment; it relies on the supply curve.

The Best Token is Always Infrastructure

In January 2026, capital is fleeing safe trades. Bitcoin offers stability, not multiples. The real asymmetry lies in the infrastructure that has not yet been priced by the wider market.

When Kaspa repriced, it moved from a niche miner coin to a Top 30 asset because the market realized speed was infrastructure. ZKP sits at that same precipice. The market is just beginning to realize that privacy is infrastructure.

If ZKP captures even a fraction of the enterprise compute market, offering a way for banks, hospitals, and AI labs to use blockchain without leaking data, its current valuation mechanics will look disconnected from reality.

History doesnt repeat, but it rhymes. Kaspa showed that a fair-launch, high-tech Layer-1 could deliver a 23,000% return by solving a core problem. ZKP is using that same playbook, but with a burn mechanism that accelerates the scarcity timeline. For those looking for the defining infrastructure play of this cycle, the window to enter before the market fully understands the Stage 2 supply shock is narrowing by the day.