Kamino (KMNO): A Lending and Liquidity Protocol on Solana
The token of a Solana DeFi app for lending and yield
Kamino Finance is a DeFi application on Solana that combines lending, automated liquidity management and leveraged strategies, and KMNO is its token for protocol decisions. The token arrived in April 2024.
1. A lending and liquidity app on Solana
Kamino Finance is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, financial services run by smart contracts instead of a bank, on the Solana blockchain (known for fast processing and low fees). It offers three main things: a lending market (Kamino Lend), vaults that manage liquidity positions on decentralized exchanges (Kamino Liquidity), and leveraged strategies (Multiply).
KMNO is Kamino’s token, described as serving governance, meaning votes on how the protocol is run. Its maximum supply is 10 billion. On the Crypto Nation map, KMNO stands in Solana City, because it was first issued on Solana.
2. Lending, vaults and leverage
In the lending market, users deposit coins to earn interest and can borrow other coins against that collateral. The borrowing limit is a share of the collateral’s value (the loan-to-value ratio); if the collateral falls too far, part of it is sold to repay the debt (liquidation). Interest rates adjust automatically, rising as more of a pool is borrowed.
Liquidity vaults manage ‘concentrated liquidity’ positions on Solana exchanges such as Orca and Raydium, where funds sit only within a chosen price range to earn more fees; the vault re-sets the range when prices move and reinvests earnings. Leveraged strategies repeat borrowing and depositing to enlarge exposure, mostly between assets that move similarly.
3. Uses and milestones
Kamino is one of the lending markets on Solana, and other projects’ assets can be linked to it as collateral. For example, Superstate’s tokenized US Treasury product USTB is described as usable as collateral on lending services such as Aave on Ethereum and Kamino on Solana.
KMNO appeared in April 2024 and was distributed by airdrop (a free handout) according to points earned by using Kamino. In 2025 Kamino launched V2, adding curated lending vaults run by outside risk managers and a modular layer for creating separate markets with their own rules. Markets that accept real-world-asset tokens as collateral, starting with Securitize’s tokenized private-credit fund ACRED, came with it.
4. Things to know
Lending protocols face sharp price falls: liquidations can pile up, and collateral with thin liquidity can leave bad debt, meaning loans worth more than the collateral behind them. If the oracle (the service supplying outside prices) is wrong or late, wrongful liquidations are possible. Smart contract bugs and hacks are a risk across DeFi, even for audited code.
Congestion or outages on Solana can delay liquidations and repayments, and other Solana lenders compete with Kamino. Only part of the 10 billion maximum supply circulates, so locked tokens released later could increase the amount on the market, and token-vote governance can give large holders the most influence.
Written from information public up to October 2026. It does not recommend or rate any coin and is not investment advice. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.