Introduction

Welcome to Kerne

Welcome to Kerne, a delta neutral yield engine built on Base.

We built a delta neutral yield engine whose inputs are public. The modeled rate is live at kerne.fi/api/apy, and the realized record sits beside it on the honesty board. The deployed collateral vault takes WETH and is closed to deposits. kUSD itself earns nothing; skUSD receives yield only when the strategist distributes it.

No middlemen. No hidden fees skimmed off the top. On the live route you pay the PSM swap fee to mint kUSD, which steps down with size from 0.10% to 0.05%, and nothing at all to stake it into skUSD. The performance fee that scales with maturity belongs to the KerneVault WETH vault and is charged by that contract alone; that vault is whitelist gated and closed to new deposits.

The Economic Shift

USDC and USDT reserve income goes to their issuers. Kerne is designed to distribute strategy income through skUSD; the modeled rate and realized record are published separately.

We thought that was backwards. So we built something different. A protocol where the yield is accessible for anyone.

The live route is to mint kUSD from USDC through the PSM, one for one less the fee, then optionally stake into skUSD. Its share price rises when yield is distributed. KerneVault is a separate collateral vault and is closed to deposits.

Using the Protocol

This documentation covers how the protocol works, what makes it safe, how to get started, and what we are building toward. We wrote this documentation to be clear, honest and complete.

For what is live on chain right now, what is shipping next, and what is parked behind a named blocker, the public roadmap is at kerne.fi/roadmap. Every line on it links to the surface that proves it.