People often say crypto is opaque and confusing.
On the surface, they might be right—intricate technologies, diverse terminology, volatile markets, and a continuously-evolving landscape are just a few things you need to navigate when joining the crypto space.
This holds particularly true for all things decentralized finance (DeFi), which is why Kamino has taken on the task of simplifying DeFi and making crypto more delightful to use.
If that hasn't gotten you excited, this certainly will—Kamino recently unveiled its point program and announced its governance token: $KMNO.
Still not familiar?
In this guide, we'll cover everything you need to know about Kamino and the $KMNO token.
Overview
- Project: Kamino
- Token ticker: $KMNO
- Blockchain: Solana
- Sector: Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
- Business model: Lending/Borrowing & Structured products/Vaults (DeFi strategies)
- Ethereum counterparts:
What does Kamino do?
Similar to marginfi, Kamino offers lending and borrowing. But that's not all…
It also provides you with access to a whole slew of vaults, so you can take advantage of multiple DeFi strategies.
Here's a brief overview of Kamino's product portfolio:
- Lending: You can deposit your tokens into the platform's liquidity pools, becoming a lender. These funds are pooled together and can be utilized by other users for borrowing purposes.
- Borrowing: You can also borrow other tokens by collateralizing the tokens you hold. To do so, you need to lock up a certain value of your cryptoassets as collateral, enabling you to borrow other cryptocurrencies from the platform.
- Interest Rates: The interest rates for borrowing and lending are algorithmically determined based on the supply and demand dynamics within the platform. Generally, borrowers pay interest, while lenders earn interest on their deposited assets.
- Vaults
- Liquidity: Earn fees and rewards by deploying your tokens into decentralized exchanges such as Orca, Raydium, and Meteora.
- Multiply: Leverage your exposure to yield-bearing assets such as JitoSOL, bSOL, and mSOL up to 5x.
- Long/short: If you’d like to take advantage of even more leverage, these vaults allow you to easily increase your directional exposure with just a single click.
Please bear in mind that using DeFi protocols and leverage can be risky. Learn more.
What is the $KMNO token?
$KMNO is the governance token of the Kamino platform, i.e., protocol.
As with all governance tokens, $KMNO allows you to guide and impact the protocol's direction via on-chain governance from its dedicated decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
According to Kamino, $KMNO's future utility will offer:
1. Control over $KMNO Incentive Programs for protocol users
2. Control of protocol revenue allocation
3. Voting for decentralized protocol operations and risk management
As for $KMNO's distribution, Kamino announced it will go as follows:
- Total Supply: 10,000,000,000
- Estimated Day 1 Circulating Supply: 10%
- Initial Community Distribution: 7%
- Distribution: Linear based on Kamino Points
How to qualify for the $KMNO airdrop?
Compared to other DeFi apps on Solana, which haven't publicly confirmed their rumored airdrops and tokens, Kamino has done both.
The premise is simple: Earn points by using Kamino products and they'll be converted into $KMNO tokens as soon as the airdrop goes live.
According to Kamino, the main motivation of its point program—which acts as a precursor to the $KMNO airdrop—is to get its platform into the hands of as many users as possible, acquire new users, and reward loyalty.
As such, Kamino's point program will continue to run through multiple rounds of $KMNO token drops.
Regarding point distribution, the default rates are as follows:
- Kamino Lend Supply: 1 point per dollar per day
- Kamino Lend Borrow: 1 point per dollar per day
- Kamino Liquidity Vaults: 1 point per dollar per day
Also, keep your eyes open for new point campaigns from Kamino on 𝕏.
See more point rates and boosts.
How to check your $KMNO allocation?
Kamino opened the KMNO airdrop checker at 10:15am EST on Friday, April 4th, 2024. Check your allocation using only official links from our banners and Explore tab or Kamino's official website.
Once you claim your $KMNO, you can also stake it.
When will the $KMNO airdrop take place?
$KMNO will be distributed via multiple airdrops over several months. With that said, the initial $KMNO airdrop took place on 10:15am EST on Friday, April 4th, 2024
Moreover, we expect the $KMNO airdrop to function like other ones on Solana. Generally, token rewards aren’t sent directly to your wallet. You must go to a dedicated website to claim them. Kamino’s claim page isn’t available yet, but we’ll be sure to share it here, on social media, and via our app when it goes live.
⚠️ Beware: During airdrop season, scammers create imitation accounts to trick you into clicking phishing links and wallet drainers. Please exercise caution. Only click on, and visit, links from Kamino’s official 𝕏 account, and do not respond to direct messages from unknown parties related to the $KMNO airdrop—regardless if you’re on X (formerly known as Twitter), Discord, Telegram, or other platforms.
For more, read our Solana airdrops guide.
How to trade $KMNO with Phantom?
Note: You need to hold SOL in your Phantom wallet to complete this process.
If you’re not eligible for the $KMNO airdrop, you can buy, sell, and trade $KMNO tokens with Phantom.
After logging-in to your Phantom browser extension or mobile app, select a wallet that holds the tokens you’d like to trade. Next, click on the swap (arrow) icon at the bottom. In the swap widget, select the token pair you’d like to trade, review the order, then submit!
How to set up a Phantom wallet?
If you’d like a friendly multichain wallet for crypto, DeFi, and NFTs, try us out. We offer browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, Brave, and Edge, as well as apps for iOS and Android.
First, download Phantom. Then, create a new wallet.
If you’d like to fund, or send funds to, your Phantom wallet, you can do so via the “Buy” button on your asset tab. We offer various funding options, such as MoonPay, PayPal, and Robinhood to make it easy for you to fund your wallet.
Once you do that, you're ready to go.
How to bridge tokens to Solana with Phantom?
If this is your first time using Solana, you might have most of your assets on other blockchains, such as Ethereum and Polygon. With our Cross-Chain Swapper, you can bridge tokens across Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon right in your Phantom wallet. Here’s how:
Disclaimer: This guide is strictly for educational purposes only and doesn’t constitute financial or legal advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.
