01 — Speed
Speed of light money
Ultra-fast settlement, 24/7/365. Not business-day ACH. Not “3–5 days.” Money that moves when you do.
Open source · Closed beta · For everyday people
Move money at the speed of light
K0 is an open-source payment protocol for domestic and global transfers — powered by stablecoins under the hood, designed so you never have to think about blockchains. Privacy-first. 24/7 ultra-fast. Regulatory compliant. Send like email. Settle in seconds. No middleman.
For people who just want to pay
Payments that feel like now
Whether you’re sending rent across town or remitting across a border, K0 is built for real life: open protocol, stable value, always-on rails — without making you become a crypto user first.
02 — Simple
Stablecoin power, human UX
Powered by stablecoins so value stays predictable — without wallets, chains, or seed phrases in your face. Pay by email. Link a bank. Done.
03 — Trust
Privacy-first & compliant
Designed to stay privacy-minded for everyday use while remaining regulatory compliant. Open source so anyone can verify how it works.
Early community
Vision. Research. Builders.
Consumers get simple payments. Builders get an open protocol. One lean launch surface for people who want non-intermediated money movement — not another rent-seeking rail.
01 — Vision
No intermediaries
Pure P2P protocol design. Funds move sender → receiver. Protocol fee is transparent (10 bps). Governance by builders, for builders.
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
Closed beta for developers who will ship integrations, stress corridors, and write the next chapter — 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.
Join the revolution
Money that moves with you
End users: be first in line for a payments experience that feels like email — open protocol, stablecoin rails, privacy-first, always on. Developers: the protocol is open in closed beta — explore the docs, then request access to build.
Middleman not allowed. Blockchain complexity not required. Protocol substance — now.