01 — Vision
No intermediaries
Pure P2P protocol design. Funds move sender → receiver on-chain. Protocol fee is transparent (10 bps). Governance by builders, for builders.
Protocol release 2.2.0 · Phase 1
Be the first to shape real-time money movement
K0 is a stablecoin-powered peer-to-peer payment protocol: 10 basis points, settlement in seconds, Gmail identity, and no intermediary — not even us. Built for U.S. domestic payments today; U.S. ⇄ India corridor next.
Early community
Vision. Research. Builders.
One lean launch surface for founders, researchers, and operators who want to architect non-intermediated money movement — not watch another rent-seeking rail.
02 — Research
Hack the money stack
Architecture is open for review: 25 composable W-libraries, hybrid ledger, multi-rail settlement, and a compliance posture aimed at the CLARITY Act software exception.
03 — Community
Join K0 builders
Early access for people who will run nodes, ship integrations, stress corridors, and write the next chapter of the whitepaper — not spectators.
Why K0
Card networks take 2–3%. We take 0.10%.
SWIFT wires cost $25–50. ACH is slow. K0 charges ten basis points with full auditability, no seed phrases, and no money-transmitter theater for end users.
Card / ACH
2–3%
- Multi-day settlement windows
- Rent-seeking intermediaries
- Opaque fee stacks
- Business-hours rails
K0 Protocol
10 bps
- Real-time on-chain settlement
- P2P — no intermediary, not even us
- Fee-as-a-log transparency
- 24/7/365 availability
Typical crypto UX
Seed phrases
- Addresses, gas, chain switching
- Compliance bolted on later
- Custodial shortcuts
- Hard for mainstream users
How it works
Pay by email. Settle on-chain.
Users never manage private keys. K0 layers Gmail identity on a multi-rail settlement engine and writes an immutable audit trail for every action.
Onboard
Gmail + phone OTP. Protocol provisions addresses across settlement rails and a personal ledger.
Link bank
Plaid production linking (read-only). Funding defaults stay separate from fee-paying root accounts.
Send
Pay by email. Instant if the recipient is onboarded; escrow + auto-claim if they are not.
Settle & log
USDC on Base (or active rail), fee deduction, journey ID, sheet ↔ chain reconcilable anytime.
Shipped · Release 2.2.0
What works today
Not a deck. Not a mock. This is the current protocol surface after UAT and launch-day work — API, CLI, rails, and compliance machinery.
| Capability | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Onboard → multi-rail addresses | Live | All 7 rails provisioned at S28 onboard |
| Link real bank (Plaid) | Live | Production mode verified; read-only balances/identity |
| Pay by email | Live | S30: instant or treasury escrow with claim window |
| USDC ERC-20 on Base | Live | Sepolia + mainnet via W20 EVM settlement |
| Stellar / XRPL testnets | Live | Sponsor-activated accounts; Horizon / JSON-RPC |
| Fiat on/off-ramp (Coinbase) | Dry-run default | W19 / W21 — real money only with explicit execute |
| Corridor payment | Live | Three-leg US→US and US→IN flows (S31) |
| Audit + reconciliation | Live | W2 logs, journey IDs, S16 sheet ↔ chain audit |
Use cases
Where 10 bps unlocks new rails
Personal transfers
Remittances, bill splitting, family payments — by email, without card fees or wire forms.
Business payments
B2B settlement and payroll with real-time finality and an immutable fee log per journey.
Micro-transactions
Pay-per-content and streaming models that die under 2–3% rails become viable at 10 bps.
Corridors
US domestic first; US ⇄ India as the first cross-border corridor on the same compliance stack.
Roadmap
From pilot rails to protocol DAO
Controlled production pilot
Testnet + live Base USDC, Plaid production linking, Coinbase on/off-ramp, Google Sheets hybrid ledger, corridor pilot (US→US, US→IN), admin KYC gates.
Full on-chain ledger & identity
Migrate temporary sheet storage to native chain, decentralized identity, additional corridors, stronger privacy with selective disclosure.
Protocol DAO & open ecosystem
Parameter governance (bps rate, circuit breakers), operator set expansion, grants, and third-party wallets/apps on the verified applications surface.
Principles
Compliance-first. Non-custodial where it counts.
No intermediary principle
Direct P2P transfers. K0 does not sit in the middle of value as a classic money transmitter for user-to-user settlement.
Gmail-centric identity
Authenticate with Google + phone OTP. No seed phrases. Deterministic addresses — users never see keys.
Fee-as-a-log
Every action can produce a transparent Fee-Log. Idempotency keys and journey IDs make every deduction auditable.
Software exception posture
Architecture targets the CLARITY Act software exception: non-custodial wallets, permissionless-style orchestration, user-side fiat rails.
Payee KYC gate
Phase 1: payees require admin verification before value moves. Escrow has a claim window and admin reverse/sweep.
Reconcilable by design
Sheet ledger and chain proofs can be audited via S16. Nothing mutates state without a correlated log write.
FAQ
Early-stage, answers first
Why join now?
Phase 1 rails are live for pilots: multi-rail onboarding, pay-by-email, Base USDC, Plaid production, and corridor flows. Early builders shape operator onboarding, API ergonomics, and the research surface before the full K-0.org / K0.money dual-domain launch.
What should I expect in the next 30 days?
More pilot traffic on US→US and US→IN corridors, hardening of claim/escrow ops, documentation polish for S-primitives, and early community channels for researchers and operators who pass basic ability-and-willingness checks.
Do users need crypto knowledge?
No. Identity is Gmail + OTP. Banks link via Plaid. Settlement is stablecoin under the hood. The product surface is payments, not trading.
Is K0 custodial?
Fiat bank links are read-only via Plaid. End-user chain addresses are non-custodial by design (shadow / embedded wallet patterns). The one custodial component is treasury escrow for unclaimed pay-by-email funds — explicitly flagged in the regulator narrative.
Where is the full website sitemap heading?
Primary domain: kzero.org for the informational hub (home, Protocol Intro, developers). Future: real-time dashboard surface. This launch site is version 0.02 of that journey.
Community hub
Join K0 builders
Ultra-early community for people who will research architecture, run operator tests, and ship on the protocol — not a waitlist for marketing emails alone.
Middleman not allowed. Governance token details — later. Protocol substance — now.