When I first opened Kamino, I felt like I’d stepped into an airplane cockpit. There were tabs for Earn, Borrow, Multiply, Liquidity, and Swap, and everywhere I looked were percentages ranging from 5% to 23%. The first question I asked myself was simple: where can I actually make money here?
That’s why this article won’t be a classic platform description. I’ve prepared a traffic light guide for you. I’ve marked each way to earn on Kamino with a color:
- 🟢 Green light – the simplest and most suitable for beginners.
- 🟡 Yellow light – it works, but you need to understand what’s happening behind the scenes.
- 🔴 Red light – for those who already have experience. You can lose money quickly here.
Before you start, I recommend downloading my free crypto e-book, where the basics are explained step by step.
What is Kamino, explained in one minute
Kamino (website kamino.com) is a DeFi platform on the Solana network.
- DeFi (decentralized finance) are financial services without a bank. Instead of a bank employee, a smart contract handles everything. This is a computer program on the blockchain that automatically executes an agreement. For example, you lend money and the contract automatically pays you interest.
- Solana is a blockchain, which is a public digital “ledger” of transactions, similar to Ethereum. Solana is known for very fast transactions and low fees, often costing less than a cent.
Think of Kamino as a digital bank without bankers. In it you can:
- lend cryptocurrencies and receive interest (Earn),
- borrow cryptocurrencies and offer your own as collateral (Borrow),
- increase your exposure with leverage (Multiply),
- provide liquidity to exchanges and earn fees (Liquidity),
- swap one token for another (Swap).
How big is the platform? The market size is a few billion dollars, and there are several million dollars of deposits in the vaults. This doesn’t mean the platform is risk-free, but it does mean it’s used by huge numbers of people.
Before you start: 3 things you need
1. A crypto wallet for Solana
A crypto wallet is an application where you store your cryptocurrencies. For Kamino you need a wallet that supports Solana. The most well-known is Phantom.
Important: when you install the wallet, it will show you a seed phrase. This is 12 or 24 words that are the key to your money. Write them down on paper and never share them with anyone. Whoever has these words has your money.
2. Some SOL for fees
SOL is the native cryptocurrency of the Solana network. You use it to pay for transaction fees (gas fees). To get started, a small amount is enough, for example a few euros worth of SOL.
3. A stablecoin to earn with
A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency that is pegged to the value of the dollar. USDC, for example, is always worth approximately 1 dollar. For beginners this is ideal because the price doesn’t fluctuate up and down like Bitcoin.
On Kamino you’ll see several stablecoins: USDC, PYUSD (PayPal’s stablecoin), USDG, and others.
💡 Tip: How to buy USDC and SOL and transfer them to your wallet, I’ve described step by step in my free e-book. If you haven’t done that yet, start there.
How to connect your wallet to Kamino
Do this in less than a minute:
- Open kamino.com and verify that the address in your browser is correct. Scammers make fake copies of websites.
- Click Connect Wallet in the top right.
- Select your wallet, for example Phantom.
- Confirm the connection in your wallet.
That’s it. The connection itself won’t send any money. You must confirm each transaction separately in your wallet.
Then you have a Portfolio tab where you can see all your positions in one place. A position is each of your investments, for example a deposit in a vault or a loan.
🟢 Green light: Kamino Earn – lending for interest
This is the simplest way to earn on Kamino and I recommend starting here.
How it works
In the Earn tab you’ll find vaults. A vault is like a communal pot where many people deposit the same cryptocurrency. Money from the pot is borrowed by other users, who pay interest for it. This interest is distributed among everyone who has deposited in the pot.
Each vault is managed by a curator. This is an expert team that decides who gets to borrow money and under what terms. On Kamino, well-known names like Steakhouse, Sentora, and Re7 are among the curators.
APY (annual percentage yield) tells you how much you would earn in a year if interest were continuously added to the principal. This phenomenon is called compound interest: interest earns new interest.
TVL (total value locked) tells you how much money is deposited in the vault in total. A larger TVL means more people trust the vault.
⚠️ Important: APY on Kamino is not fixed. It changes every day depending on how much people are borrowing.
Let’s say you deposit 1,000 USDC in a vault with 7% APY:
- after one month you have approximately 1,005.7 USDC,
- after six months approximately 1,035 USDC,
- after one year approximately 1,070 USDC.
It doesn’t sound like much, but compare it to the interest on a regular bank account. Plus, you can usually withdraw your money anytime.
The toggle most people miss
On the Earn page there’s a toggle called “Include KMNO Rewards in APY”. When it’s turned on, the displayed APY also includes rewards in the KMNO token.
KMNO is Kamino’s native token. Token holders use it to vote on platform changes, and they can also stake it. Staking means you lock up the token and receive additional rewards in return.
Why is this toggle important? Because the price of KMNO changes. If part of your returns come in KMNO and it drops in price, your actual earnings will be lower. That’s why turn off the toggle and see what the “pure” returns are without rewards.
🛑 My mistake: When I started with DeFi, I always picked the vault with the highest number. Only later did I realize that a large part of those returns came from reward tokens that had lost value in the meantime. Today I always look at the base returns first.
How to deposit in an Earn vault (step by step)
- Click the Earn tab.
- At the top click the Stables filter to see only vaults with stablecoins.
- Sort by the Deposits column and select a vault with larger deposits.
- Click View.
- Enter the amount and click Deposit.
- Confirm the transaction in your wallet.
Your deposit will appear in the Portfolio tab, and interest starts accruing immediately.
🟡 Yellow light: Kamino Liquidity – earn from exchange fees
What is liquidity
When someone exchanges USDC for PYUSD on an exchange, someone needs to provide both tokens. That “someone” can be you. This is called providing liquidity.
In a liquidity pool you deposit a pair of tokens, for example PYUSD and USDC. Each time someone trades through that pool, they pay a small fee. You get a portion of that fee.
Kamino saves you a lot of work with this. Their vaults automatically manage the position and reinvest the fees, which means they invest them again and increase your returns.
Kamino reports that their liquidity vaults have generated over 42 million dollars in fees in total. The featured pairs were:
- PYUSD-USDC: 5.98% APY
- USDu-USDC: 9.51% APY
- hyUSD-USDC: 13.49% APY
Why yellow and not green light
With liquidity there is a risk called impermanent loss. When the price of one token in a pair changes relative to the other, your position can be worth less than if you had simply held the tokens in your wallet.
With pairs of two stablecoins, for example PYUSD-USDC, this risk is small because both are worth approximately 1 dollar. That’s why I recommend to beginners only stablecoin pairs. With pairs like SOL-USDC, impermanent loss can be substantial.
There is another risk though: a lesser-known stablecoin can lose its peg to the dollar. This is called a depeg. The higher APY on lesser-known stablecoins is often payment for exactly this risk.
Where to find the right pool
- Click the Liquidity tab.
- Select the Stables filter.
💡 Tip: Don’t just look at APY. A pool with 5.98% and 17 million TVL is more reliable to me than a pool with 13% and 2 million TVL. High returns always come with a higher risk premium.
🟡 Yellow Flag: Kamino Borrow – borrowing without selling crypto
What borrowing is for
Imagine you own SOL and believe its price will rise. At the same time, you need USDC. Instead of selling your SOL, you deposit it as collateral and borrow USDC.
This is similar to a mortgage: the house is collateral, the bank lends you money. On Kamino, your cryptocurrency is the collateral.
Three terms you need to understand
- LTV (loan-to-value ratio) tells you how much you can borrow relative to the value of your collateral. If LTV is 50% and you deposit $1,000 in SOL, you can borrow up to $500.
- Liq LTV (liquidation LTV) is the threshold at which the system liquidates you.
- Liquidation means the smart contract automatically sells part of your collateral to repay the loan. This happens if the price of your collateral falls too much.
Example with the AUTO token: liquidation LTV is 80%, and the borrowing interest rate (Borrow APY) is 5.97%.
Why a yellow flag
Borrowing itself is not earnings, it’s a tool. It becomes dangerous if you borrow too much. On the Borrow tab, you’ll also find a toggle called “Include Asset Yield in APY”. This means the displayed numbers include the yield that some tokens generate on their own.
🛑 Tip: Never borrow more than one-third of what the system allows you to. This way, even a significant price drop won’t trigger liquidation.
🔴 Red Flag: Kamino Multiply – leverage with one click
This is the tab with the biggest numbers and also the biggest risks.
What is leverage
Leverage means you increase your position using borrowed money. With 4.5x leverage, you manage a $4,500 position with just $1,000.
Multiply does this automatically through a process called a loop:
- you deposit a token as collateral,
- you borrow another token,
- you swap the borrowed token back for the first token,
- you deposit it again as collateral,
- the process repeats until your desired leverage is reached.
Kamino features in the Multiply tab:
- AUTO Loop: up to 23.40% APY, with maximum leverage of 4.5x,
- PRIME Loop: up to 18.78% APY,
- ONyc Loop: up to 18.45% APY.
All three are labeled as RWA Loop. RWA (real-world assets) are actual assets brought on-chain. PRIME, for example, is tied to U.S. real estate loans, while ONyc is tied to reinsurance markets. The yield comes from the real economy, not just crypto.
The Multiply tab has millions of dollars in deposits combined.
Why a red flag
Notice the phrase Max APY, meaning maximum returns. This only applies at the highest leverage, where the risk is also greatest. Leverage amplifies profits, but also losses. If the ratio between tokens reverses or borrowing rates climb above the yield, your position can lose value quickly.
Kamino offers fixed interest rates on some loops (marked “Fixed 1M” on wYLDS, meaning fixed for one month). This reduces one risk but doesn’t eliminate all of them.
🛑 My honest opinion: If you’re new to crypto, just observe Multiply for now. Come back once you’ve been using Earn for at least a few weeks and understand how APY changes.
Kamino Swap – swap tokens without platform fees
The Swap tab isn’t a way to earn, but it’s a useful tool. You use it to exchange one token for another, for example USDC for SOL.
Kamino advertises 0% platform fees. You only pay the Solana network fee, which is minimal.
Two terms you’ll see:
- Slippage is the difference between the price you see and the price at which the swap actually executes. The default setting is 0.50%. For beginners, this is completely fine.
- Routes: Kamino checks multiple exchanges and selects the best route for you.
Here you’ll also find Limit Orders. Set the price at which you want to buy or sell, and the exchange will execute automatically when the price reaches that value.
The “More” Menu: A Hidden Treasure You Need to Know About
In the More menu in the top right, there’s a lot of useful features that beginners never open:
- Kamino Rewards – claim rewards from seasonal programs here.
- Staking & Governance – stake KMNO here, vote on proposals, and increase your points.
- Risk Hub – risk analytics for lending. Check here before any major deposit.
- Security and Audits – security audits. An audit means external experts review the code and look for bugs.
- Codebase – the code is publicly available, which means anyone can review it.
- Documentation – detailed instructions.
I’m not saying you need to read the code. The fact that the platform publishes audits and open-source code is a sign I always check before depositing money anywhere.
Action Plan: Your First 30 Minutes on Kamino
If you want to turn theory into practice, follow this plan.
Minutes 0–10: Setup
- Install the Phantom wallet and safely write down your seed phrase.
- Buy some SOL and USDC on an exchange and transfer them to your wallet.
Minutes 10–15: Connection
- Open kamino.com, verify the address, and connect your wallet.
Minutes 15–25: First Deposit
- Go to Earn → Stables.
- Toggle off KMNO rewards and check the base yield.
- Select a vault with high deposits and deposit a small amount that you can afford to lose without worry.
Minutes 25–30: Monitoring
- Open Portfolio and verify that your position is showing.
- Set a reminder to review your position once a week.
After one month, compare your actual earnings to what you expected. Only then consider increasing your deposit or addressing any red flags.
7 Rules That Protect You From Losses
- Start small. Your first deposit should be an amount you won’t miss.
- Green light first. Earning with stablecoins is the best start.
- High APY = high risk. No exceptions.
- Check the base yield without rewards.
- Don’t invest everything in one vault. Spread your money across two or three.
- Never share your seed phrase. Kamino will never ask for it. Anyone requesting it is a scammer.
- Watch out for fake sites. Access Kamino only through a verified address that you’ve saved in your bookmarks.
I’ve collected all of these tips and more in a free crypto e-book for beginners. I recommend having it handy when you invest for the first time.
Frequently Asked Questions About Kamino
What is Kamino?
Kamino is a DeFi platform on the Solana network where you can lend cryptocurrencies for interest, borrow them, provide liquidity, and use leverage. Everything runs through smart contracts, with no bank involved.
Is Kamino safe?
Kamino publishes security audits and has open-source code, which are good signs. However, no DeFi platform is without risk. Risks include smart contract bugs, liquidations, and stablecoin depegging. Only invest what you can afford to lose.
What do I need to get started?
You need a crypto wallet for Solana (for example, Phantom), some SOL for fees, and a cryptocurrency you want to invest, such as USDC.
What is APY?
APY is the annual percentage yield, accounting for compounding interest. It shows how much you would earn in one year if interest were added to your principal regularly.
What is liquidation on Kamino?
Liquidation occurs when the value of your collateral falls below a certain threshold. The smart contract then automatically sells part of your collateral to repay your loan.
Can I withdraw money from Kamino anytime?
With most Earn vaults, you can withdraw your money anytime. An exception might be if the vault is heavily borrowed at that moment. With fixed-term loops, however, you must stick to the agreed-upon timeline.
My final thoughts
Kamino is one of the most powerful tools for earning with cryptocurrencies on the Solana network. But power comes with responsibility. My advice is simple: start with the green light, learn how returns change, and only then take the next step.
If you’d like me to guide you through this step by step, download my free e-book. It contains everything you need for a safe start with cryptocurrencies.
