What is a lending market?

A lending market pools deposits from suppliers and lends them to borrowers who post more collateral than they borrow. Aave and Compound built the model on Ethereum, and Kamino is one of the biggest versions on Solana. There is no credit check. The collateral is the credit, and a position that slips below the required ratio gets liquidated.

Rates follow utilization, the share of supplied money that is currently borrowed. Low utilization means cheap loans and thin supply yields. Near the protocol's target level the rate curve bends up hard, pulling in new deposits and pushing borrowers out so suppliers can still withdraw.

Each collateral asset has a maximum loan-to-value ratio. At 75 percent LTV, $10,000 of SOL lets you borrow up to $7,500. If SOL drops far enough, liquidators repay part of your debt and take your collateral at a discount. That discount is your loss.

Picture a USDC market at 93 percent utilization, paying 8.7 percent to suppliers and charging 11.1 percent to borrowers. The spread reflects utilization and the protocol's cut. The number people skip is the 93. At that level, if many suppliers want out at once, withdrawals can queue until borrowers repay.

Also called: money market, lending protocol.

Solana yields shows current Kamino main-market supply APY, borrow APY, deposits and utilization for tokens such as SOL, USDC, USDT and JitoSOL, and flags utilization of 92 percent or more with a warning that withdrawals may queue. Cashboard never supplies or borrows on your behalf.

• Solana yields

• DeFi
• Liquidation price
• APY vs APR
• Total value locked
• Liquid staking token