Jack Paul 
Kamino’s Platform Evolution
Kamino Lending, which has been growing steadily on Solana, is undergoing a significant rebranding and expansion. The announcement came during the Solana Breakpoint event in Abu Dhabi, marking what seems to be a strategic shift for the protocol. Instead of sticking solely with crypto lending, they’re introducing six new products that broaden their scope quite a bit.
I think this move reflects how the DeFi landscape is changing on Solana. The chain has been trying to capture more of the overall DeFi market and attract external liquidity, and Kamino appears to be positioning itself as part of that push. They’ve had $2.59 billion in total value locked, which isn’t insignificant, but perhaps they felt the need to diversify.
From Meme Tokens to Real-World Assets
What’s particularly interesting is the shift toward real-world asset tokenization. Kamino previously accepted multiple meme tokens as collateral during Solana’s meme coin boom. That strategy worked for a while—they served both retail users and larger investors by providing USDC liquidity against stablecoins.
But the meme market slowed down, and relying on risky collateral became, well, risky. So now they’re trying to become a bridge between asset tokenization and DeFi. It’s a logical pivot, I suppose, given the growth in RWA over the past year.
Institutional Focus and New Products
For 2026, Kamino has set its sights on institutional-grade services. They’re unveiling six new products, some of which are connected to their existing lending structure. One product will offer fixed-rate borrowing, locking rates for specific terms. FalconX will be the pilot borrower, which should demonstrate the institutional credit capabilities.
Another product will create a lending market through borrowing intents. Basically, potential borrowers post their desired terms and get matched with lenders. This could address some volatility issues in crypto lending, where rates depend on liquidity pool utilization and can swing wildly.
Crypto lending has typically required much larger collateral than traditional finance, creating inefficiencies that institutions don’t like. Kamino’s trying to change that by integrating off-chain collateral, allowing on-chain borrowing for assets in qualified custody. They’ll use Chainlink data and partner with Anchorage Digital for this.
RWA Expansion and Developer Tools
For real-world asset expansion, Kamino plans to launch a specialized DEX. They want to build liquidity for tokenized assets while using precise oracles for pricing. Currently, XStocks handles Solana-based tokenized stocks, but those assets aren’t really integrated into DeFi yet. Kamino might be trying to fill that gap.
The final new product is a Build Kit for developers, offering SDK and API access to integrate Kamino yield into other applications. This makes sense if they want broader adoption beyond their own platform.
Kamino Lend remains the biggest lending protocol on Solana, with up to 75% of the chain’s $3.6 billion lending liquidity. But competition is growing—Jupiter Lend emerged in late 2025 and started accumulating loans quickly. Kamino even tried to prevent users from accessing Jupiter Lend initially, which suggests some tension.
This expansion with new products might help Kamino boost its market share and offset revenue losses from retail users switching to competitors. It’s a calculated move, but whether it pays off depends on execution and market reception. The DeFi space moves fast, and what works today might not work tomorrow.