Project Research Dossier

Kairos: smooth emissions do not eliminate dilution

By Teck(Squad leader) And bikeaner (Squad member) | 29 October 2026

Goal and decision

Kairos asks a worthwhile question: can a proof-of-work cash network fund security over the long term without a hard supply cap? It combines UTXO payments, merge-mining and fee burning. The potential is a testable security-budget design; adoption and safety remain unproven. My verdict is research watchlist, not capital deployment. [S1, S6]

Eligibility and stage

As checked on 29 October 2026, the project states no mainnet, sale, presale or airdrop; testnet coins have no value. This supports the no-active-sale constraint, not proof about undisclosed fundraising. I treat it as a pre-launch research candidate, not an announced investment opportunity. No scheduled raise or TGE is established; the model does not assume one. Selection rests on the stated no-sale, pre-mainnet status. [S1]

Tokenomics

Price, FDV, circulation: No mainnet price or investable circulating supply established. Market cap = price x circulating supply; FDV needs an explicit supply basis. Neither is responsibly estimable here.

Supply/allocations: 21m KRS is the decay parameter, not a lifetime cap. Code grants block subsidies to miners. Investor/team allocations and vesting terms are not established; do not substitute invented percentages. [S2, S3]

Vesting/unlocks: No investor cliff or linear vesting calendar established. Proposed mainnet mining rewards mature after 100 blocks (~3h20 at target pace), versus 20 on testnet. Maturity is not investor vesting. [S2]

Unlock and dilution model

Scenario, not a launch forecast: zero initial issuance, 120-second blocks, 365.25-day years (262,980 blocks), full reward claims and zero burns. Reproduce in integer motes: reward = max(60,000,000, (2,100,000,000,000,000 - G) >> 21); then G = G + reward. Divide by 100,000,000 for KRS. Parameters may change before mainnet. [S2]

| Model year | Gross issuance (KRS) | 1 | 2,474,952 | | 2 | 4,658,219 | | 4 | 8,283,151 | | 8 | 13,299,132 |

Year two adds 2,183,267 KRS: 88.2% growth relative to year-one supply. A holder who neither buys nor earns more has 46.9% less proportional ownership (1 - G1/G2). Neither figure predicts price loss. Issuance is continuous; there is no evidenced investor unlock date to plot. Smooth rewards do not mean low early dilution.

The floor begins around model year 22.45. Thereafter 0.6 KRS/block issues 157,788 KRS/year. Average burns of 0 / 0.3 / 0.6 KRS per block imply annual net additions of 157,788 / 78,894 / 0 KRS. These are sensitivities, not usage forecasts. Burn must offset the full, higher subsidy before the tail. Code also counts unclaimed rewards as burned; this model assumes full claims. [S2, S3]

Team verification

The Nimsalcade account, public repository and revision history are inspectable. They do not establish legal identity, prior delivery or an independent engineering team. The sources reviewed do not verify those claims. Published code is stronger evidence than a biography, but is not an audit or proof of decentralisation. [S1, S7, S8]

Risks and decision gates

Technical - possible loss or chain failure: The project declares itself unaudited. Require published independent consensus/cryptography reports, scopes, fixes and retests; a checklist is not completed assurance. [S1, S4]

Execution / concentration - launch delay, reorgs: Merge-mining support does not prove independent pool adoption. Require real-pool compatibility evidence, operator diversity and adversarial test results. [S4, S5]

Incentives - dilution without enough demand: Low burn leaves positive net issuance; rewards alone do not establish economic security. Monitor actual fees, miner revenue and hash concentration if mainnet launches. [S2, S5; model above]

Governance / legal - discretion and disruption: Miner signalling and emergency releases create coordination risks. Require accountable release/incident processes and the jurisdictional legal review listed in launch gates. This is an unresolved dependency, not a legal finding. [S4, S6]

Verdict Continue only as a technical research lead. Reassess after independent audits and remediation, a tested second implementation, demonstrated pool compatibility, the required public-testing evidence and clarified launch economics. Do not treat a planned milestone as completed work or assign a token price to a valueless testnet. [S1, S4]

Disclosure

I hold no Kairos-related assets and have no project payment, grant, referral arrangement, team relationship or other incentive. This is the squad independent research as teck (Squad leader) and bikeaner (Squad member), not a statement for the Kairos team. Not financial advice.

Method and sources

Method: primary-source review at revision c5bc4aec55a1 (full commit in links), checked 29 October 2026; local reproduction of the published issuance recurrence. No node, security audit or live-network measurement was performed. The whitepaper/security notes describe older versions in places; later changelog/launch entries take precedence on implementation status.

[S1] README: status and project goal

[S2] Consensus parameters: issuance and maturity

[S3] Chain: reward accounting and supply

[S4] Mainnet launch gates

[S5] Security policy and limitations

[S6] Whitepaper: sections 3, 6, 9 and 12

[S7] Maintainer profile

[S8] Changelog: version context