What is Mina Protocol?
Mina Protocol (MINA) is a layer-1 blockchain built around a single unusual claim: the entire chain state fits in about 22 kilobytes, no matter how many transactions have ever been processed. That number is not a marketing slogan. It is the size of a recursive zk-SNARK proof, and it is the only thing a node needs to verify that the whole history of Mina is valid.
The project came out of O(1) Labs, a research shop founded by Evan Shapiro (Princeton) and Izaak Meckler (UC Berkeley), with mainnet going live in March 2021. MINA is the native token. There is no fixed supply cap; issuance runs at roughly 7% per year on a decaying schedule, paid out to block producers and delegators staking MINA on the network.
MINA price today
MINA trades on Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, KuCoin, and Bybit. The deepest pairs are MINA/USDT and MINA/USD. Live data on this page refreshes every 60 seconds and uses a volume-weighted average across the largest venues.
What tends to push MINA around:
- zkApps adoption. New zk smart contracts shipping to mainnet (TrustCafe identity, NFT mints, DeFi primitives) feed the long-term thesis. Quiet quarters drag price the other way.
- Recursive-proof narrative cycles. ZK is one of crypto’s loudest themes and it rotates hard. When traders bid up Aztec, StarkNet, or Polygon Miden, MINA usually catches the same flow as the original recursive-SNARK chain.
- Inflation rate. MINA prints around 7% per year and decays slowly, so net supply rises steadily. When staking participation drops, the dilution shows up faster in the float.
- ZK ecosystem rotation. Capital moves between zkEVM L2s, Aztec’s privacy layer, and Mina’s zk-native L1 depending on which roadmap looks closest to delivering. Mina’s edge is being a sovereign chain rather than a rollup.
- BTC correlation. MINA has a higher beta than majors. A 3% BTC move often translates to 6 to 9% on MINA.
The figure in the price card above is the live quote at page load. The discussion below uses that reference price.
How Mina works: the 22KB succinct chain
Every other chain grows. Bitcoin’s full ledger is more than 600 GB. Ethereum is heavier still. To verify the chain from genesis, you download every block and replay every transaction. Mina takes a different route. Instead of asking nodes to verify history, it asks them to verify a single proof that says "all of history was valid."
That proof is constant size. Around 22 kilobytes, give or take. It does not grow when more transactions land. It does not grow when the chain is a year old or a decade old. A phone, a browser tab, even a smart card can verify the latest Mina state in roughly the time it takes to load a small image.
The trick is recursive composition. Each new block proof takes the previous block’s proof as input and produces a fresh proof that the new block plus everything before it is valid. The old proof gets discarded. The new proof carries the same constant-size guarantee. End-users only ever check the latest one.
Recursive zk-SNARKs and Pickles
The proof system that makes this possible is called Pickles. It is named after a cucumber, which is the kind of joke you get when cryptographers run a project. Pickles is a recursive zk-SNARK construction built on top of the Kimchi proof system, and it shipped fully on mainnet with the Berkeley hardfork in 2024.
Two things matter about Pickles. First, recursion is cheap enough to run inside a single block, which is what keeps the chain succinct. Second, every proof verifies in constant time, so the cost to a light client never changes. Compare this to optimistic rollups, where verifying fraud takes a week, or to zkEVMs, where proof generation is expensive but verification is bounded by the rollup’s settlement layer.
Mina’s closest cryptographic relative is Zcash, which also moved to recursive proofs (Halo 2) in the Orchard pool. The two projects share a lineage but solve different problems: Zcash hides transaction data, Mina compresses the chain itself.
zkApps: zero-knowledge smart contracts in TypeScript
A zkApp is a smart contract on Mina, but the model is inverted. Most of the logic runs on the user’s machine, in the browser. The result is a zero-knowledge proof that the computation was done correctly. Only the proof, plus a small state diff, hits the chain. The actual code, the inputs, and the intermediate steps stay off-chain.
zkApps are written in TypeScript using a library called o1js (formerly snarkyjs). Developers do not need to learn a new language or a domain-specific circuit framework. They write what looks like normal TypeScript, the toolchain compiles it into a circuit, and the user’s browser generates the proof at runtime.
The implications are different from a typical EVM chain. A zkApp can keep user inputs private by default, since they never leave the device. It can run heavier computations than would fit in a block, because only the succinct proof gets submitted. And gas costs do not scale with how complex the off-chain computation was, only with the on-chain verification step.
For comparison with the dominant smart-contract platform, see Ethereum. Ethereum prioritises a global state machine; Mina prioritises succinctness and client-side privacy. Forward price scenarios for MINA itself live on our Mina price forecast page.
MINA staking with Ouroboros Samasika
Mina secures itself with Ouroboros Samasika, a proof-of-stake protocol adapted from the Cardano family of Ouroboros consensus designs. Samasika is the variant built specifically for succinct chains: nodes that only ever hold the latest proof still need a way to agree on chain history without replaying it.
Slot times are 180 seconds, so blocks land roughly every 3 minutes. Block producers stake MINA to compete for slots. There is no minimum stake to delegate, which means small holders can point their MINA at any block producer without locking funds in a contract or running infrastructure themselves.
Annual staking rewards land in the 7% range, in line with overall network issuance. Delegators do not receive rewards directly from the protocol; the block producer they delegate to is responsible for paying out, which means picking a producer with a clean payout history matters. Foundation-run pools and a handful of long-running independent producers handle most delegated stake.
How to buy and stake Mina (MINA)
Buying MINA is the easy part. Self-custody and staking take a little more setup, particularly because Mina uses its own address format and is not supported by every hardware wallet out of the box.
- Pick an exchange. Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, KuCoin, and Bybit all list MINA. Our exchange ratings compare the leading venues by fees, liquidity, and security history.
- Complete identity checks. Most regulated platforms ask for a government ID and a selfie. KYC is usually under 10 minutes for retail accounts.
- Fund the account. Bank transfers (ACH, SEPA) are the cheapest path. Cards are instant but charge 2 to 4%. Stablecoin deposits (USDT, USDC) settle in minutes if you already hold them.
- Place the order. Market orders fill at spot. Limit orders cap your buy price. For positions over a few thousand dollars, scaling in over a couple of hours reduces slippage on MINA’s thinner books.
- Move MINA into self-custody and stake. Auro Wallet (browser extension and mobile) and Pallad Wallet are the two main self-custody options. Both let you delegate to a block producer in a few clicks. Funds left on an exchange remain at the exchange’s custody risk and earn whatever the exchange decides to pay, if anything.
Always send a small test transfer first when moving to a new wallet. Mina addresses start with "B62" and look nothing like Bitcoin or Ethereum addresses, so do not rely on muscle memory.
Risks of holding Mina
Mina has a clean technical story but a hard commercial one. The risks specific to this asset are different from generic crypto volatility, and most of them are tied to whether the recursive-SNARK thesis turns into actual usage.
- Inflation tail. MINA has no supply cap and prints around 7% per year. The decay schedule is gentle. Holders who do not stake see their share of the network shrink continuously, and price has to outrun dilution just to break even.
- zkApp adoption gap. Mainnet zkApps shipped in 2024, years after the marketing started. Live applications exist (TrustCafe, MinaSearch, a handful of NFT and identity tools) but daily active users remain small. If the zkApp ecosystem does not grow, Mina is a clever consensus design with limited use.
- ZK competition. Aztec is shipping a privacy-first L2. Polygon Miden is building a zk-native execution layer. StarkNet has a much larger developer base and a working zk rollup. Mina’s sovereign-L1 angle is genuinely different, but it competes for the same developer mindshare and the same ZK narrative dollars.
- Technical complexity barrier. Writing zkApps in TypeScript looks easy until you hit circuit constraints, proof generation times, and the gap between what o1js advertises and what runs cleanly on a phone. Developer onboarding is a real bottleneck and the team knows it.
- Liquidity. MINA market depth is thin compared to majors. Six-figure positions move the price on most venues, and the order book widens fast during downturns.
This page is information, not financial advice. Talk to someone licensed before allocating real capital.
Mina Protocol's all-time high of $9.09 was set on June 1, 2021. The current price sits +99.50% below that peak. Distance from the all-time high is a common reference point when evaluating long recoveries and macro support or resistance.
Buying Mina Protocol (MINA) is a five-step routine once you have picked the right venue and pair. The steps below mirror what most investors do today.
Whether Mina Protocol is a good investment depends on your goals, time horizon, and tolerance for volatility. Like all cryptocurrencies, MINA carries real market risk: prices can rise or fall sharply in a day, and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.
This page provides data and analysis for educational purposes only. It is not financial advice. Always do your own research, diversify, and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
