Project Research Dossier - Kerne Protocol

Kerne Protocol — Pre-TGE Due Diligence Kerne is a Base-based synthetic-dollar protocol built around kUSD and skUSD. Users mint kUSD 1:1 from USDC through a Peg Stability Module, while skUSD is designed to receive yield from a delta-neutral strategy combining productive ETH/LST collateral with an equal-notional perpetual short. Tokenomics KERNE has a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens. Team: 20% Investors: 15% Ecosystem / LM: 25% Treasury: 15% Community / Opal: 5% Protocol Liquidity: 5% Public Sale / TGE: 5% Catalyst / Reserve: 10% The main concern is that the planned vesting schedules are not yet enforced on-chain. According to Kerne’s disclosures, the entire KERNE supply is currently held in a 2-of-3 governance Safe. Key Risks The main risks I identified are governance and token custody, small current scale, dependence on perpetual-market funding conditions, smart-contract risk, and legal/counterparty risk. Hexens audited five contracts and reported no critical findings, although two findings remain acknowledged. Conclusion What stands out about Kerne is its transparency. Reserve data, contract information, audit findings, and token-control limitations are publicly documented. However, my view remains conditional. The key things to watch before TGE are the deployment of enforceable vesting/escrow contracts, separation of token allocations, and whether the strategy remains operational as usage grows. Eligibility / Disclosure KERNE is not publicly circulating and no TGE is currently scheduled. I found no completed public raise in the primary materials reviewed, although this should still be confirmed against Legion’s specific eligibility interpretation. No position. No compensation or incentive received for this research. Primary Sources Kerne Protocol Whitepaper v3.0 https://kerne.fi/whitepaper Kerne Security / Audits https://kerne.fi/security/audits Kerne Transparency https://kerne.fi/transparency Kerne Terms of Service https://kerne.fi/terms Kerne public GitHub / underwriting memo https://github.com/kerne-protocol/contracts-public/blob/main/underwriting/kusd-underwriting-memo-2026-08-08.md Kerne commitment / TGE disclosure https://kerne.fi/commit