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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://kamino.com/docs/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Fixed Rates introduces predictable borrowing costs to Kamino by letting borrowers lock in a rate for a defined term — 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or longer — without exposure to utilization-driven rate swings. A 5.5% 3-month loan charges 5.5% through maturity regardless of what the variable rate market does. For lenders and liquidity vaults, Fixed Rates introduces Conditional Liquidity: capital stays deployed and earning in variable reserves until a fixed-rate borrow match is found, eliminating the opportunity cost of pre-positioning. The system generates DeFi’s first on-chain yield curve — a live, market-priced term structure visible across all active fixed-rate reserves.

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The rate grid

Each market maintains multiple reserves per debt token. Instead of a single USDC reserve, the market exposes a full rate grid: one variable reserve plus one reserve per rate-and-duration combination currently offered. Each reserve is independent — it has its own liquidity, its own utilization, and its own borrowers. A position in the USDC 5.5% 3m reserve has no interaction with the USDC 6.0% 6m reserve. Example rate grid for USDC debt in a single market:
Rate1 month3 months6 months12 months
5.0%USDC 5.0% 1mUSDC 5.0% 3m——
5.5%—USDC 5.5% 3mUSDC 5.5% 6m—
6.0%—USDC 6.0% 3mUSDC 6.0% 6mUSDC 6.0% 12m
7.0%——USDC 7.0% 6mUSDC 7.0% 12m
Not every cell is populated. Curators and governance determine which reserves exist; liquidity is not guaranteed across all combinations. Reserves with no active lenders have no borrowing capacity regardless of demand. Reserve isolation matters for risk. A large repayment or withdrawal in USDC 6.0% 6m does not affect liquidity in adjacent reserves. Borrowers and lenders interact only within their specific reserve.

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Conditional Liquidity

Liquidity vaults face an inherent problem when offering fixed-rate lending: capital sitting in a fixed-rate reserve earns nothing until a borrower arrives. Conditional Liquidity solves this by letting vaults signal capacity on fixed-rate reserves without moving capital. Capital remains in variable-rate reserves, earning the live variable yield. The vault posts a conditional signal on one or more fixed-rate reserves, declaring that it can fill up to a specified amount at that rate and duration. When a matching Borrow Order is submitted, the protocol atomically:
  1. Pulls the required amount from the vault’s variable-rate position
  2. Deposits it into the target fixed-rate reserve
  3. Delivers it to the borrower
No capital sits idle waiting for a match. Between signal and fill, the vault earns variable-rate yield. A single pool of capital can be conditionally signaled across multiple reserves simultaneously — if the USDC 5.5% 3m reserve fills first, the signal on USDC 6.0% 6m is satisfied from the same capital pool, first match wins.
Conditional Liquidity is a vault-level feature. Retail lenders depositing directly into a reserve do not post conditional signals — they provide committed liquidity to that specific reserve immediately.

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Borrow Orders

Borrowers access fixed-rate reserves through the Borrow Orders system. A Borrow Order specifies the desired debt token, rate ceiling, term, and amount. The protocol matches the order against available conditional and committed liquidity across the rate grid and fills at the best available rate up to the borrower’s ceiling. See Borrow Orders for the full mechanics of order submission, partial fills, and matching logic.

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Early repayment

You can repay a fixed-rate loan at any time before maturity without waiting for the term to end. During the first term only, an early repayment penalty may apply. The penalty compensates lenders who committed capital for the agreed duration. After a rollover into a subsequent term, there is no early repayment penalty. The penalty is calculated based on the minimum interest that would have accrued had the loan run longer. Interest already paid on the loan reduces the penalty proportionally — the longer you have been in the loan, the smaller the effective penalty on early exit.
The early repayment penalty applies during the first term only. Once a loan rolls over into a new term, you can exit at any time without penalty.

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Rollover

Fixed-rate loans have a maturity date equal to loan_start + term_duration. As maturity approaches, borrowers have four options:
OptionConditionOutcome
Rollover — same reserveLiquidity available, no withdrawal tickets queuedLoan extends for another full term at the same rate
Rollover — better rateA lower-rate reserve of the same duration is availableLoan migrates to the cheaper reserve for a new term
Rollover — variable fallbackFixed-rate reserves are unavailablePosition converts to the variable-rate reserve at the prevailing rate
RepayAlways availableLoan is closed, collateral is freed
Rollover is blocked if any withdrawal tickets are queued in the reserve (see Withdrawal Queue below, and Concepts). In that case, the borrower must repay or find an alternative fixed-rate reserve; lenders requesting capital back take priority over loan extensions. A grace period of approximately 6 hours applies after maturity. During the grace period, the position remains healthy and rollover or repayment can be executed without penalty. After the grace period expires, the position becomes eligible for liquidation regardless of the collateral health ratio — an expired fixed-rate loan is treated as a protocol-level breach, not a price-driven one.
Taking no action at maturity is not a safe default. After the grace period, the position becomes liquidatable. Set reminders ahead of maturity and confirm whether rollover liquidity is available before the deadline.

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Withdrawal Queue

Fixed-rate reserves lock lender capital for the duration of the term — lenders cannot withdraw on demand mid-term. To exit a position before borrowers repay, lenders submit a withdrawal ticket specifying the amount they want returned. Tickets enter a per-reserve FIFO queue. Queued tickets are filled as capital re-enters the reserve through borrower repayments and liquidations. There is no guarantee of fill timing; a reserve with low repayment activity may take the full remaining term to return queued capital. The queue directly affects borrower rollover eligibility. Any queued ticket in a reserve blocks rollover for all borrowers in that reserve. This is by design: lenders who have signaled intent to exit cannot be re-committed to a new term without their consent. Borrowers planning to roll should check whether any withdrawal tickets are queued before maturity.
Withdrawal ticket status is visible on-chain. If a reserve has queued tickets approaching your loan maturity, plan for repayment rather than assuming rollover will succeed.

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The emerging yield curve

The rate grid is more than a product feature — it is DeFi’s first live term structure for lending rates. Each populated cell represents a market-clearing price for capital at a specific duration. The difference in rate between a 3-month reserve and a 6-month reserve for the same token is the term premium: the additional yield lenders require to lock capital for longer. This structure enables real price discovery for duration risk. When demand for 6-month USDC borrowing rises, rates in 6-month reserves rise relative to 3-month reserves, signaling to the market that longer-term capital is scarce. Vaults can observe the spread across the grid and allocate conditional liquidity to the cells offering the best risk-adjusted yield for their duration tolerance. For borrowers managing treasury exposure or structured positions, the yield curve provides a reference: you can see exactly what the market charges across all available terms before committing, and choose the duration that best matches your liability profile. Variable-rate borrowing remains available via the standard reserve for positions where term certainty is not required — see Borrowing for how variable-rate positions work.
Fixed Rates integrates fully with Multiply. You can lock your borrow cost for the entire term of a leveraged position — turning a carry trade with variable rate risk into a predictable spread for a defined duration.