Kamino shifts strategy with six new DeFi products
Kamino Lending, the major DeFi protocol 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 pivot for the platform.
I think this move reflects broader changes in the DeFi landscape. Kamino is shifting from its previous focus on pure crypto lending to offering six new services. The protocol is trying to adapt to what feels like a shifting climate, especially as Solana attempts to capture more of the DeFi market and external liquidity.
Real-world assets become central focus
Perhaps the most notable change involves Kamino’s approach to real-world asset tokenization. The protocol chose this expansion path after what they describe as significant RWA growth over the past year. It’s interesting to see this shift, especially considering Kamino’s previous work with meme tokens as collateral.
The protocol had built up $2.59 billion in total value locked, but the slower Solana meme market and what they call “risky collateral” led to this business reshaping. Now, Kamino aims to position itself as a bridge between asset tokenization and DeFi.
During the Solana meme boom, Kamino primarily served retail users and larger investors, providing USDC liquidity against stablecoins. But for 2026, they’ve set a new plan focused on institutional-grade services.
New products target institutional adoption
The six new products are partially linked to Kamino’s existing lending structure. They’ll add a fixed-rate product that locks borrowing rates for specific terms, with FalconX serving as the pilot borrower to demonstrate institutional-grade credit.
Another product will create a lending market through borrowing intents. Potential borrowers will post their desired terms and get matched with lenders. This approach might address some volatility issues in crypto lending, where rates depend heavily on liquidity pool utilization and can vary widely.
Crypto lending has traditionally required larger collateral to secure loans, creating inefficiencies that institutions typically avoid. Kamino’s new approach might help with this.
Expanding beyond traditional crypto collateral
Kamino will also integrate off-chain collateral, allowing on-chain borrowing for assets in qualified custody. The protocol plans to use Chainlink data and issue loans in partnership with Anchorage Digital. They’re also joining the private credit trend by launching a new BTC-backed USDC vault.
For RWA expansion, Kamino aims to launch a specialized DEX to build liquidity for tokenized assets while using precise oracles for pricing. Currently, XStocks serves as the standard for Solana-based tokenized stocks, but these assets aren’t well integrated into DeFi.
The final new product is a Build Kit targeting developers with SDK and API access to integrate Kamino yield into other applications.
Kamino Lend remains the biggest lending protocol on Solana, with the chain carrying $3.6 billion locked in lending liquidity. Kamino holds up to 75% of this share. Their biggest competitor is Jupiter Lend, which emerged in the second half of 2025 and quickly started accumulating loans.
Initially, Kamino even tried to prevent its users from using Jupiter Lend. This recent expansion with new products might help Kamino boost its overall market share and offset some revenue losses from retail users switching to competitors. It feels like a necessary evolution, though only time will tell how these institutional-focused products perform in practice.
