Project Research Dossier - KERN /$KRN

Project Research Dossier — Kern (KRN) Pre-mainnet, pre-raise Layer-1 blockchain. Solo developer (Nicolas Van Eeckhout), Apache-2.0, ~33k LOC Python, 692 tests passing. BFT finality, Liquid PoS, on-chain governance, optimistic-rollup EVM, Skald contract language. Targets EU-regulated tokenized securities (MiFID II/Prospectus Reg/AIFMD, not MiCA), public goods funding, oracles, ZK-claims.

Tokenomics: Genesis supply fixed at 100,000,000 KRN. No sale has happened — FDV and circulating supply are undefined. Distribution: 70% public sale (liquid at genesis), 10% founder (1yr cliff + 4yr linear), 15% Foundation (discretionary multisig), 3% contributors (6mo cliff + 3yr linear), 2% validator bootstrap (1yr). Note: README says Foundation=14%, tokenomics.md says 15% — unreconciled in the project's own docs. Emissions: adaptive issuance, 0.25%–6% annualized, targeting 50% staked.

Dilution: 70% liquid at TGE is high-float with no cliff on the largest tranche. Insider tranches use cliff+linear — reads conservative on paper, but untested since nothing has priced yet.

Team: Only the founder is named anywhere in the sources. No advisors, backers, or VCs disclosed. Unverifiable beyond the repo itself.

Key risks: solo/key-person risk; no professional audit (self-review only; real audit budgeted €100-200k); ~9-15 months and €275-510k needed before mainnet, unfunded; allocation-table discrepancy; no live network, price, or liquidity; minimal traction (5 GitHub stars); dependent on EU regulatory approval not yet sought.

Disclosure: No position held, no compensation received for this research.

Sources: github.com/vaneeckhoutnicolas/kern · /docs/tokenomics.md · /genesis.json · /genesis_vesting.json · /docs/roadmap.md · /docs/security-review-v11rc.md