Vault

The KRNL Vault is the economic backbone of the protocol — the component that ensures workflows not only execute securely but also settle fairly. Executors may compute, attestors may prove, but the Vault handles the money flows: billing, fee collection, storage, and distribution.

By integrating with Ethereum standards like EIP-7702 (delegated accounts) and EIP-4337 (account abstraction), the Vault makes billing seamless, flexible, and fully automated. This ensures developers can focus on building while the protocol transparently handles value exchange.

Role in the Protocol

• Billing Engine – Enforces payment flows for every workflow execution.

• Fee Collector – Captures protocol fees, gas fees, and service costs.

• Distributor – Routes funds to node operators, executor builders, kernel providers, and the protocol treasury.

• Economic Guardian – Prevents underpayment, double-spending, and ensures sustainability via transparent fee policies.

Billing System with EIP-7702 + EIP-4337

The Vault leverages Ethereum’s most advanced account standards to handle payments:

EIP-7702: Delegated Accounts

• Lets an EOA (Externally Owned Account) delegate authority to a Smart Contract Account (SCA).

• SCAs can sign and pay for workflow executions on behalf of the user.

• Supports dual transactions:

  1. The workflow execution itself.

  2. The corresponding payment into the Vault.

• Benefits:

  • Users don’t have to manually juggle fee payments.

  • Developers can enforce billing policies at the account level.

EIP-4337: Account Abstraction

• SCAs function as programmable wallets, enabling meta-transactions.

• Supports:

  • Bundlers, who relay batched transactions into the chain.

  • Paymasters, who can sponsor gas fees for users.

• Benefits:

  • Smooth UX: users don’t need ETH for gas.

  • Flexible billing: fees can be paid in stablecoins or other ERC-20s.

  • Gas optimization: multiple workflow steps can be batched into a single transaction.

Together, 7702 + 4337 turn KRNL billing into a self-contained system: users delegate, SCAs enforce, Vault collects, and everything is cryptographically verifiable.

Fee Structure

Every workflow execution incurs three categories of cost:

Total Execution Cost = Platform Base Fee + External Service Costs + Gas Costs

1. Platform Base Fee

   • Paid to the Vault for using KRNL infrastructure.

   • Funds node operators, executor builders, and protocol maintenance.

2. External Service Costs

   • APIs, off-chain data providers, and kernel services each have their own costs.

   • Automatically collected and routed to the correct provider.

   • Enables long-tail API providers to monetize directly within KRNL.

3. Gas Costs

   • Native Ethereum gas fees for on-chain verification and settlement.

   • Can be sponsored by developers (via Paymasters) or paid directly by users.

Distribution of Fees

The Vault executes automated, rules-based distribution:

• Node Operators – Paid for running KRNL-Nodes that execute workflows and provide computational resources.

• Executor Builders – Receive rewards when their executors are used inside workflows.

• Protocol Treasury – Funds governance, ecosystem incentives, audits, and long-term development.

This ensures that every contributor to the ecosystem is rewarded fairly and transparently.