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Over the past few days, the exchange between Kamino and Jupiter has escalated from a healthy competition into an apparent public dispute. The events began on November 27, when Jup Lend introduced A Refinancing tool On the front end to migrate repeat positions from Kamino Multiply directly to Jup Lend with one click. The refinancing process begins as an atomic transaction that includes four steps:
- Pay off the debt owed by Kamino.
- Withdrawal of associated guarantees.
- Move these assets to Jupiter Lend.
- Reestablish the position within Jupiter Lend, keeping the same loan amount and collateral ratio.
On December 2, Camino Updated Its smart contracts block Jupiter, preventing one-click refinancing. Both the Jupiter and Fluid teams (Jup Lend uses Fluid on the backend) portrayed the move as anti-competitive and against the “principles of open finance.”
On December 6, the Camino co-founder made the public announcement He explained The rationale for blocking Jup Lend’s migration tool, noting that Jupiter has repeatedly suggested that borrowers’ collateral is insulated, meaning that it is not remortgaged and is not exposed to the risk of cross-contamination. However, this claim was not true, even with Fluid’s co-founder Recognition Remortgage within Jup Lend.
It is worth noting that Kamino has never prevented users from manually repaying their loans and withdrawing their capital to Jup Lend. Whether it was against the principles of open finance or not, the move to block the refinancing program was primarily a business decision, much like Joblund’s decision not to open source its code (even though it has plans to do so). In this regard, it is interesting to analyze the competitive dynamics between the two financial markets over the past few months.
Since its launch in late August, Jup Lend has grown to $1.6 billion in deposits and $610 million in loans. The chart below shows that Camino deposits and loans decreased by $1.3 billion (-28%) and $460 million (-26%) respectively over the same period.
The top five assets in terms of deposit growth since the launch of Jup Lend are USDC ($485 million), JLP ($225 million), SOL ($206 million), USDC syrup ($174 million), and jupSOL ($85 million). During the same period, Camino saw significant outflows of all of these assets, with the exception of USDC syrup. However, even for USDC syrup, Jup Lend still attracts nearly 3x inflows.
Kamino’s growth over the past few months has come from assets that are not yet supported by Jup Lend. In particular, stablecoin inflows in Q4 were driven by PYUSD ($42 million) and Phantom’s CASH ($125 million). Camino has also been proactive in qualifying DATCO LSTs; Most notably dfdvSOL and more recently fwdSOL.
Kamino’s PRIME integration stands out as a catalyst that can bring net new inflows to the money market. PRIME provides users with access to a structured credit pool backed by U.S. mortgages originated and serviced through FIG. This integration effectively provides access to a source of revenue unrelated to the cryptocurrency markets which may attract more institutional borrowers.
In conclusion, it is clear that Kamino and Jup Lend are competitors, and competition is healthy because it drives innovation and ultimately benefits users. However, said Lily Liu of the Solana Foundation male,Instead of fighting with each other, Kamino and Jupiter should focus on growing the pie and seizing market share from other chains and TradeFi afterwards. Combined, the two money markets still account for less than 10% of Aave’s deposits, and without initiatives like the PRIME integration, it will be impossible to close this gap.
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