Announcement
Introducing Kona Pearl: The Governance Token That Burns KONA To Exist
How We Got Here
When we launched KONA, we did it differently.
We launched through FROTH—a community-first mechanism that's tied to a multichain DeFi economic system across Abstract and Flow. Users must spend 1,000 FROTH to mint 1 KONA. There are only ~967M FROTH in existence and forever decaying due to buybacks + burns across both chains.
KONA's utility comes from one place—the productive economy built on top of it. Kona Lend. Kona Swap. Kona Kitties. A multichain DeFi ecosystem where fees flow to participants and token value reflects actual usage.
We're proud of this model. It aligns everyone. Holders win when the protocol wins. No games.
But as we scale, we hit a wall that every fully diluted token eventually faces.
The Fully Diluted Problem
How do you incentivize liquidity without emissions?
This is the question that haunts every project that refuses to inflate (many from the DeFi summer fair launch era hit this early and hard).
The playbook everywhere else became simple: print tokens, pay farmers, attract TVL. It works until it doesn't. Eventually the emissions dry up or the selling pressure overwhelms the buy side. The chart bleeds. The farmers leave.
We weren't going to do that to KONA holders. We believe in our capped supply economics as the future of DeFi.
But we still needed farmers. We still needed TVL. We still needed liquidity providers to show up and stay.
So we built something new.
Cracking the Code
What if governance itself was the incentive layer?
What if accessing governance required burning the core token—permanently removing supply instead of adding to it?
What if more farming activity meant more deflation, not more dilution?
That's Kona Pearl (PEARL).
Today we're launching a governance layer controlling emissions across both Kona Lend and Kona Swap. It solves the liquidity incentive problem while making KONA scarcer. Not through buybacks. Not through treasury games. Through the mechanics of participation itself.
Every PEARL minted burns KONA. And KONA has a hard cap.
Do the math. There's a ticking clock on this system.
The Mechanism
100+ points + 1 KONA (burned forever) → 1 PEARL
PEARL is an inflationary governance token gated by a deflationary burn. The more times PEARL is minted, the less KONA exists. Ever.
This isn't a lock. KONA doesn't come back. It's removed from the capped supply defined by the FROTH <> KONA economics. Every mint shrinks what remains.
Two Paths. One Decision.
You farm. You earn points. Now you choose:
Path A: Kona Kitties
Points → Gear → Equip to Kitty → Boost fee capture → KONA value
Path B: Kona Pearl
Points → Burn KONA → Mint PEARL → Governance power or sell for ETH
Both paths burn points. Both paths feed value back to KONA. But they serve different purposes.
Kitties are for fee capture. PEARL is for governance. You decide where your points go based on what you're optimizing for.
The Clean Separation
This is important. We didn't muddy the waters.
PEARL
KONA + Kitties
Purpose
Governance
Value accrual
Controls
Point emissions across farms
Protocol fee distribution
Earns
Bribes from projects
Fees from protocol activity
Supply
Inflationary (but gated)
Hard capped, deflationary
PEARL holders decide where points flow. Kitty holders capture protocol revenue. Different games. Different players. Both need KONA to exist.
The governance layer doesn't siphon fees from holders. It creates a separate value stream—bribes from external projects—while burning KONA supply in the process.
The Ticking Clock
Think about where this goes.
Early days: KONA is relatively available. Minting PEARL is easy. Governance is accessible.
Later: KONA supply has been eaten by burns. Remaining KONA is expensive. Minting PEARL costs real money. Governance becomes scarce.
Eventually: KONA is so depleted that new PEARL creation slows to a crawl. Existing PEARL holders control emissions. The window closes.
We're at the beginning of that curve right now.
Difficulty Adjustment: Bitcoin Logic for DeFi Governance
There's a concept in Bitcoin that shapes its entire economic model: difficulty adjustment. As more miners compete and more blocks get found, the difficulty of mining increases. The cost to produce new BTC rises over time. Early miners operated with CPUs. Now it takes warehouses of specialized hardware. The window of easy access closes.
PEARL works on the same principle—but the difficulty adjustment is economic, not computational.
Every PEARL mint burns 1 KONA from a fixed supply. As KONA gets scarcer, its price rises. As its price rises, the cost to mint PEARL rises. The same mass of points that once created cheap governance becomes progressively more expensive.
Early epoch: KONA = $20 → Mass PEARL minting is cheap
Mid epoch: KONA = $100 → Minting requires real commitment
Late epoch: KONA = $500 → Governance becomes expensive to access
The mechanism is self-regulating. High demand for governance burns KONA faster, which raises difficulty faster, which slows new PEARL creation. The system finds equilibrium through price.
But unlike Bitcoin, where difficulty adjusts algorithmically every 2016 blocks, PEARL's difficulty adjusts continuously through the market. Every trade. Every burn. Real-time repricing of what governance costs to acquire.
Early participants don't just get more PEARL—they get PEARL at a difficulty level that will never exist again. The cost basis of early governance becomes unreachable as the supply burns down.
This is proof-of-burn as monetary policy. The work isn't computational. It's economic sacrifice. And like Bitcoin's early blocks, the governance minted today will look impossibly cheap in hindsight.
One Gauge System. Two Protocols.
Existing gauge systems control emissions for single protocols. Curve for Curve. Velodrome for Velodrome.
PEARL governs emissions across Kona Lend and Kona Swap simultaneously. Lending markets and liquidity pools compete for the same gauge votes.
A new token launches on Abstract. They need:
A lending market on Kona Lend for leverage and borrowing
Deep liquidity on Kona Swap for trading
Both needs flow through PEARL holders. One governance token. Two protocols. Double the surface area for value capture.
For KONA Holders: Win Either Way
Farmer mints gear? Points burned. Gear is scarce. Kitties with gear capture more fees. KONA demand.
Farmer mints PEARL? KONA burned. Supply shrinks. Scarcity increases. KONA value.
Both paths benefit you. The system is designed so that point consumption, regardless of direction, feeds back to KONA.
For Kitty Holders: Nothing Changes (Except You Win More)
Protocol fees still flow to Kitties. That's unchanged. PEARL doesn't touch your revenue stream.
What does change:
More farmers competing means more TVL means more fees
KONA burns mean your locked KONA is scarcer
Gear becomes more contested as points have real opportunity cost
The Kitty game just got more interesting. Your gear advantage matters more when points have real opportunity cost.
The Flywheel
The Gauge War Starts Soon
PEARL holders vote on point allocation:
Kona Lend Markets
PENGU, ETH, USDC, USDT, future listings
Higher gauge weight = more points = more deposits
Kona Swap Pools
Trading pairs across the DEX
Higher gauge weight = more points = deeper liquidity
Lending markets compete against swap pools. Projects compete against projects. The battlefield spans both protocols.
If you're building on Abstract, you need PEARL voters on your side.
The Numbers
Conversion: 100 points → 1 PEARL
Burn: 1 KONA per mint (any quantity)
KONA: Hard capped via FROTH economics
Kitty gear: Still purchasable with points (no KONA burn)
The choice is yours. Gear has no KONA cost but NFT market depth. PEARL has a KONA cost but trades freely. Different tradeoffs for different strategies.
What's Live
Now:
PEARL minting
PEARL/ETH pair on Kona Swap
Point conversion interface
Coming:
Gauge voting interface
Gear Purchases
Epoch-based emission control
Bribe marketplace
Project integrations
The Window Is Open
KONA is available. Points are flowing. PEARL is mintable.
This is the early part of the curve. The part where governance is still accessible. Before the burns stack up and the clock runs down. Before the difficulty makes today's costs look like a rounding error.
You're already farming. You're already earning points. Now you have a real decision to make.
Gear up your Kitty? Or mint PEARL and control the gauges?
Both paths lead back to KONA. Choose your game
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