What is Kaspa's 5-second network delay bound?

Kaspa's 5-second network delay bound is a conservative safety parameter — an empirically derived estimate of worst-case block propagation time across the network, not a hard enforced limit. The bound was shaped by real-world network behavior: when blocks travel across a global peer-to-peer network, some arrive later than others, and the protocol needs a safe assumption for how slow that could get. If the actual delay ever exceeds this bound, Kaspa does not break — it experiences graceful degradation, meaning security guarantees reduce in a controlled, bounded way for that round rather than failing outright. For a beginner, this matters because it means Kaspa is designed to stay reliable even when network conditions are poor.