13. Tokenomics — $DNR (Dinar)
The native currency of the Kortana network is the Dinar ($DNR). It uses 18 decimal places (1 DNR = 10^18 wei) and is required for paying execution gas fees, staking to secure consensus, and voting in on-chain governance.
13.1 Emission Model (Disinflationary)
DNR implements a mathematically capped, disinflationary emission model:
- Initial Total Supply:
10,000,000,000(10 Billion) DNR created at Genesis. - Emission Model: New DNR is issued strictly on a per-block basis as validator rewards. The emission rate decreases geometrically over time.
- Net Emission Formula:
Net Emission = Block Reward - (Base Fee * 0.5)
At high transaction volumes, the amount of DNR burned through base fees can exceed the newly minted block rewards, making DNR net-deflationary in practice.
13.2 Deflationary Mechanics
The protocol actively destroys DNR through three distinct mechanisms:
- Base Fee Burn (50%): Half of all EIP-1559 base fees are burned on every block, removing tokens permanently from existence.
- Geometric Emission Decay (-10%/yr): Block rewards start at 2.0 DNR per block and decay by 10% every 21,024,000 blocks (exactly one year at 1.5-second slots).
| Year | Reward / block | Annual Emission | Cumulative Emission |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2.000 DNR | 42,048,000 DNR | 42,048,000 DNR |
| 2 | 1.800 DNR | 37,843,200 DNR | 79,891,200 DNR |
| 3 | 1.620 DNR | 34,058,880 DNR | 113,950,080 DNR |
| 5 | 1.312 DNR | 27,587,692 DNR | 170,896,896 DNR |
| 10 | 0.775 DNR | 16,290,256 DNR | 273,865,472 DNR |
Because emission decays geometrically, total lifetime token emission converges to a finite mathematical limit:
Total Lifetime Emission = 2 DNR * 21,024,000 * (1 / (1 - 0.9)) = 420,480,000 DNR
This total lifetime inflation represents just 4.2% of the initial 10B Genesis supply for all time.
- Slashing Burns (100%): Slashed stake from malicious validators is 100% burned, never redistributed.
13.3 Allocation & Distribution
The Genesis supply of 10 Billion DNR is allocated across four ecosystem pillars:
- Ecosystem & Community (40%): 4,000,000,000 DNR allocated for validator incentives, developer grants, liquidity programs, and faucet funding.
- Treasury (25%): 2,500,000,000 DNR managed by on-chain governance for protocol development.
- Foundation Reserve (20%): 2,000,000,000 DNR held for long-term network security and institutional operations.
- Core Development (15%): 1,500,000,000 DNR allocated to core engineering contributors, subject to strict 4-year linear vesting.
13.4 Supply Conservation Invariant
To guarantee absolute financial integrity, kortana-node enforces a strict mathematical invariant on startup and after every block transition:
Balances + Bonded + Unbonding + Pending + Treasury + Burned == Total Minted
If a bug or exploit ever causes this equation to fail, the node daemon immediately triggers a FATAL assertion and halts rather than committing a corrupted ledger.
13.5 Vesting
Token vesting is governed by contracts/KortanaVesting.sol:
- Linear Unlock: Tokens unlock linearly on a per-second basis following an initial cliff period.
- Pull Architecture: Beneficiaries must explicitly call
claim()to withdraw unlocked tokens. - Non-Revocable: Grants cannot be unilaterally revoked, preventing central key compromises.