Karn
An open-source governance protocol on Stellar, paired with a program to expand women's participation in tech across Latin America.
The record
- Role
- Founder & sole engineer
- Year
- 2026 · Ongoing
- Stack
- Rust
- Soroban
- Stellar
- TypeScript
- Node.js
- React
- PostgreSQL
- Supabase
- Proof
- @karn_lat/protocol-sdk published on npm
- Links
Overview
Karn is a dual-layer ecosystem: a governance infrastructure on the Stellar network and a social impact program built on top of it. I founded it and carried it end to end: product strategy, protocol architecture and implementation.
The core idea is that voting power should follow contribution, not capital. Karn ties governance influence to non-transferable credentials and a reputation score that decays over time, so influence has to be re-earned rather than accumulated and parked.
What I built
- Architected and deployed three Soroban smart contracts in Rust (Valocracy, Governor and Treasury), establishing the protocol's core governance primitives.
- Designed Mana, a contribution-based reputation system with linear decay that ties voting influence to active participation via soulbound credentials, preventing governance capture.
- Published @karn_lat/protocol-sdk, a fully typed TypeScript SDK with multi-wallet support (Freighter, Lobstr, xBull) and React integration hooks.
- Built the backend in Node.js/TypeScript with PostgreSQL and Supabase, using AES-256-GCM encryption for sensitive data and custom Stellar wallet signature verification middleware for auth.