When did the Kaspa mainnet launch, and who could mine it?

The Kaspa mainnet went live in November 2021, and mining was open to anyone at that time. A decent-size community had already formed around the project before the network launched, meaning there was broad awareness and participation from the start. Mining is the process by which new blocks are added to the network and new coins are created — an open, permissionless system means no single group had exclusive early access. For a beginner, this launch context helps establish how long Kaspa has operated as a live public network and that participation was not restricted at the outset.