KOR + Tokenomics
BTC is the gold; KOR is the gas.
Kontor respects BTC’s primacy as digital money and the network’s unit of account. BTC is what users hold, what assets are priced in, and what atomic swaps settle in. KOR’s economic model, by contrast, was designed specifically for data storage and smart contract execution. Bitcoin’s deflationary tokenomics—fixed supply, periodic halvings—make it excellent as a store of value but unsuited for incentivizing perpetual storage or metering computation. KOR fills this gap as a complementary utility token. Users acquire KOR through on-chain atomic swaps with BTC when they need to execute contracts or store files, making the interaction seamless.
Emissions sustain storage, burns control inflation.
KOR emissions reward storage nodes for maintaining files, creating a continuous income stream that incentivizes perpetual availability. These emissions scale based on network health: when file replication is strong, emissions stay moderate; when replication weakens and approaches minimum thresholds, emissions increase to attract more storage capacity. This counter-cyclical mechanism stabilizes the network—under-replication triggers higher rewards, which incentivizes repair. Meanwhile, protocol fees are burned: users burn KOR when creating storage agreements, when executing smart contracts, and when exiting storage commitments. As network activity increases, burns increase proportionally, creating deflationary pressure that offsets emissions.
Dynamic equilibrium.
The protocol aims for long-term stability where emissions balance burns rather than pursuing guaranteed scarcity or guaranteed inflation. Early in the network’s life, emissions dominate as the storage network bootstraps. As the network matures and transaction volume grows, burns begin to offset new issuance, as smart contract burns scale with adoption. KOR monetary policy creates a stabilizing negative feedback loop: falling replication increases emissions, which improves profitability for storage nodes, which attracts new capacity, which restores replication. This mechanism is designed to counteract a potentially destabilizing positive feedback loop through the KOR price: if KOR price falls, storage becomes less profitable, which could cause nodes to exit. The protocol’s response—aggressive emission increases when replication falls critically low—is designed to break this cycle by making storage profitable even during price downturns.
Learn More
For a comprehensive analysis of KOR tokenomics, emission schedules, and the economic mechanisms that sustain the protocol, see the section on Kontor Economics and the Economic Model document.
