Introducing Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield Institutional credit meets on-chain liquidity, live on Solana. TL;DR Kamino launches Institutional Yield vault infrastructure to bring real-world yield on-chain First vault is Commodity Yield, generating USD returns powered by real-world commodity trade financing Target yield of ~7-8% on USDC Launching with $25M deposit cap, to scale significantly in coming weeks First of many products to launch on Kamino's Institutional infrastructure 1. The Launch Today, we are launching Kamino Institutional Yield, a new product category designed to connect on-chain users with real-world, off-chain institutional yield opportunities, powered by Kamino's permissionless vault infrastructure. The first vault built on this infrastructure is now live, and perfectly demonstrates how the infrastructure can support a diverse range of yield strategies powered by real-world opportunities: Introducing Institutional Commodity Yield, a vault that accrues dollar-denominated interest from short-term, overcollateralized commodity trade financing operations. Commodity trade financing has been historically inaccessible not only to on-chain users, but to retail more broadly. That changes today. Launch details: USDC as initial deposit token 7-8% Target APY Overcollateralized by physical commodities and/or 1:1 backed by cash $25M deposit capacity 2. What Commodity Yield Does Commodities are what power the world: steel, coffee, iron ore, copper, fuel, and more. The buyers and sellers of these goods often sit on different continents, and every shipment carries the same trust problem. The seller will not release the goods until there is secure cash behind the deal, and the buyer will not pay until the goods have been delivered. While a shipment is at sea, someone has to fund it. For decades, banks bridged that gap with letters of credit. Under newer solvency rules, a letter of credit is a capital charge on the bank's balance sheet, so banks have been pulling back from the business while global trade keeps running. The financing gap keeps widening and the rates traders pay keep rising. This is the borrower side of the market: established commodity traders and trading companies who already have profitable, pre-agreed trades signed on both legs and need short-term working capital to settle them. Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield bridges the gap between on-chain demand for yield and the institutional demand for commodities financing, through a structure built around strict lending criteria, continuous transparency, and oversight of the lending operations from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority. 3. How Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield Works To understand how the Commodity Yield vault works, there are two core concepts to understand. The commodity trade financing flow, and how it generates a return How funds move from vault into the trade, and how funds return to the vault We’ll illustrate this below using a copper trade as an example. A trader locks in both sides of a deal: A copper trader signs two contracts at the same time: he sells copper to his client for $10 million, and he buys that copper from a wholesaler for $9 million. Both prices are fixed before any money moves, so the trader's profit is contracted from day one. The wholesaler will not ship millions of dollars of copper on a promise, and the end client will not pay until his copper has arrived and has been quality-checked. Someone has to fund the weeks in between. The Commodity Yield vault provides the financing: Through an SPV and fund structure, funds are lent to the trader to finance the trade. The cash sits in a segregated escrow account where the wholesaler can see it, and that is what gives him the confidence to ship. > The goods travel insured. The copper crosses the ocean covered by all-risk cargo insurance. If the ship sinks, the insurance pays. When the copper arrives and passes independent inspection, the escrow releases the funds to the wholesaler, and the end client pays his contracted $10 million The loan is repaid: The trader repays the loan plus interest, and that interest is the yield that flows back to the vault. The loan is covered the whole way through. Before shipment, it is matched by cash in escrow. Once the copper ships, the loan is covered by goods worth more than the loan itself: commodities bought at $9 million, already sold at $10 million. If the end buyer fails to pay for whatever reason, the Commodity Yield fund holds resellable copper purchased below its contracted sale price, and if necessary can sell it to another buyer. Deposit: Users deposit USDC into the Commodity Yield vault, signing a Loan Agreement, and receiving vault share tokens (kicUSDC), which track their share of the vault as it accrues interest. Deployment: Capital flows through Kamino's Institutional Yield structure to the Commodity Yield Fund, an approved fund supervised by CIMA. Lending: The fund originates short-term, fully collateralized Commodity Loans to corporate borrowers and commodity traders. Every transaction is contracted back to back: the borrower signs the purchase of the commodity at a discount and its onward sale to an end buyer at a fixed price at the same time, so the goods are already sold at a known price before the vault's capital funds the purchase. Returns: Interest and other income from the loan portfolio, net of fees and expenses, flows back through the structure to vault depositors. Share value appreciates as returns accrue. Withdrawals: A liquidity buffer is maintained to allow for instant withdrawals. Withdrawals beyond the buffer enter an on-chain first-in, first-out (FIFO) queue and settle as loans mature. Like any lending-based structure, Institutional Yield carries risk. including borrower default, collateral and market risk, custodian/escrow risk, and liquidity risk on withdrawals beyond the instant buffer — see [Risks Link] for the full disclosure before depositing. 4. Lending Criteria Commodity Yield funds are deployed strictly into loans that meet the following criteria: Speculative inventory positions, unsecured prepayments, and material unhedged commodity price exposure are outside the mandate. The lending operation does not face sanctioned jurisdictions, countries, individuals, or trading entities thereof. 5. A Typical Trade The numbers below are illustrative and rounded for clarity. A copper trader signs two contracts at the same time: a purchase contract for a shipment of copper cathodes at a discount to market, say $10M, and an onward sale contract to an end buyer at a fixed price, say $11M, the vault finances the $10M purchase. The capital sits in a segregated escrow account while the copper ships. At the delivery point, an independent inspection agency verifies quality and quantity. Thereafter, escrowed funds are released to the seller, and title passes to the Commodity Yield fund. Both legs often settle on the same day: the end buyer pays $11M, and principal plus margin returns to the segregated account, ready for the next shipment in the program. If the end buyer failed to perform, the fund would still hold title to copper bought at a discount and worth more than the loan, which it can sell to another buyer, though recovery timing and value depend on finding a replacement buyer and completing the sale. Any performance bond posted by the counterparty is also retained. 6. Why the Structure Matters Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield is structurally designed to maximize operational integrity and minimize risk. Overcollateralized or cash-covered at every stage of the trade Before shipment, financing sits in a segregated escrow account at a tier-one bank, or backs a letter of credit, so the loan is matched 1:1 by cash. After funds are released, title to the goods passes to the CIMA supervised fund, and the loan is collateralized by the commodity itself. The trade is designed so materially unhedged exposure to the physical commodity is minimized. A full security package on every trade Beyond the collateral itself, each loan is documented with legal protections around the financed trade: control over the escrow and designated accounts, assignment of receivables from end buyers, security interests over the commodities and related trade assets, and performance bonds from counterparties. Together these are designed to provide multiple contractual layers of downside protection. Independent verification before funds move Funds leave escrow only after internationally recognized inspection agencies (e.g. SGS, Intertek, Alfred H. Knight, or Alex Stewart) verify the shipment's quality and quantity against contractual specifications, and only against a complete documentary package covering invoices, certificates of origin, assay and weighbridge certificates, and transport documents. Insured cargo Financed goods are insured on an all-risk cargo basis for at least the full shipment value, with the financing entity (the Commodity Yield Fund) named as loss payee or co-insured, enabling direct claims for covered loss or damage. Regulatory oversight The Commodity Yield Fund is an approved fund supervised by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), with ongoing regulatory reporting and oversight. 7. A New Transparency Standard Existing products servicing off-chain borrow demand have historically operated with limited visibility into underlying positions. Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield sets a new precedent for what depositors can expect: continuous, granular visibility into the health and composition of the entire loan portfolio. Full portfolio data The Commodity Yield vault UI reflects the full loan portfolio data, sourced directly from the lending operation’s loan and risk management systems: each loan's principal, collateral type (escrowed cash or physical commodity), contractual collateral coverage, and approximate maturity, plus portfolio-level aggregates such as weighted collateral coverage, number of active loans, and total nominal exposure. Monthly independent attestation An independent accounting firm conducts monthly attestations covering aggregate and per-loan principal outstanding, collateral coverage, and key portfolio health indicators. Ongoing regulatory reporting The Commodity Yield Fund reports to the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority on an ongoing basis. Thus, the lending operation is subject to three independent verification layers: ongoing portfolio data stream, monthly third-party attestation, and ongoing regulatory reporting. 8. Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield vs On-Chain Lending Regulatory oversight applies to the lending operation; the vault, SPV, and Kamino are not regulated by CIMA or any other financial regulator. 9. Why This Matters Kamino Institutional Yield represents a new category of on-chain product. Real-economy borrowers, from commodity traders to institutions holding high-quality assets in custody, have significant, sustained demand for credit, and until now there has been no structure connecting that demand with on-chain liquidity in a way that is backed by a regulated lending operation, fully collateralized, and transparent. With Institutional Yield vaults, Kamino is launching that product. Commodity Yield is the first vault built on this infrastructure. A wide range of vaults, deploying across a diverse range of real-world opportunity can be built on this infrastructure. Reach out to @trader_marky for more details. The Commodity Yield USDC vault is now live. Documentation covering the full product structure, liquidity mechanic, risk disclosures, legal framework, and transparency mechanisms is available at: https://kamino.com/docs/products/institutional-yield Disclaimer This document is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, nor an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy, sell, or acquire any security, token, digital asset, or financial instrument, or to participate in any investment strategy. Use of Kamino Institutional Yield vaults is subject to Kamino's Terms and Conditions and geo-blocking policy. By accessing this page or interacting with the vaults, you confirm that you are not located in a restricted jurisdiction and that your participation complies with all laws and regulations applicable to you. Targeted APY figures are estimates only, are not guaranteed, and depend on the performance of the underlying loan portfolio; actual returns may be higher, lower, or zero, and deposited capital may be partially or fully lost. Deposits are not bank deposits and are not insured or protected by any deposit protection scheme. Past performance of Kamino's other products is not indicative of future results for Institutional Yield. Kamino's on-chain protocol and Institutional Yield vaults (including the Commodity Yield vault) are not themselves licensed, approved, or supervised as regulated financial services or products by CIMA, the FMA, or any other regulatory authority. References in this document to regulated funds, lending operations, or custodians relate exclusively to independent off-chain counterparties. Depositors should review the full Risk Disclosure and Loan Agreement before depositing.

Introducing Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield Institutional credit meets on-chain liquidity, live on Solana. TL;DR Kamino launches Institutional Yield vault infrastructure to bring real-world yield on-chain First vault is Commodity Yield, generating USD returns powered by real-world commodity trade financing Target yield of ~7-8% on USDC Launching with $25M deposit cap, to scale significantly in coming weeks First of many products to launch on Kamino's Institutional infrastructure 1. The Launch Today, we are launching Kamino Institutional Yield, a new product category designed to connect on-chain users with real-world, off-chain institutional yield opportunities, powered by Kamino's permissionless vault infrastructure. The first vault built on this infrastructure is now live, and perfectly demonstrates how the infrastructure can support a diverse range of yield strategies powered by real-world opportunities: Introducing Institutional Commodity Yield, a vault that accrues dollar-denominated interest from short-term, overcollateralized commodity trade financing operations. Commodity trade financing has been historically inaccessible not only to on-chain users, but to retail more broadly. That changes today. Launch details: USDC as initial deposit token 7-8% Target APY Overcollateralized by physical commodities and/or 1:1 backed by cash $25M deposit capacity 2. What Commodity Yield Does Commodities are what power the world: steel, coffee, iron ore, copper, fuel, and more. The buyers and sellers of these goods often sit on different continents, and every shipment carries the same trust problem. The seller will not release the goods until there is secure cash behind the deal, and the buyer will not pay until the goods have been delivered. While a shipment is at sea, someone has to fund it. For decades, banks bridged that gap with letters of credit. Under newer solvency rules, a letter of credit is a capital charge on the bank's balance sheet, so banks have been pulling back from the business while global trade keeps running. The financing gap keeps widening and the rates traders pay keep rising. This is the borrower side of the market: established commodity traders and trading companies who already have profitable, pre-agreed trades signed on both legs and need short-term working capital to settle them. Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield bridges the gap between on-chain demand for yield and the institutional demand for commodities financing, through a structure built around strict lending criteria, continuous transparency, and oversight of the lending operations from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority. 3. How Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield Works To understand how the Commodity Yield vault works, there are two core concepts to understand. The commodity trade financing flow, and how it generates a return How funds move from vault into the trade, and how funds return to the vault We’ll illustrate this below using a copper trade as an example. A trader locks in both sides of a deal: A copper trader signs two contracts at the same time: he sells copper to his client for $10 million, and he buys that copper from a wholesaler for $9 million. Both prices are fixed before any money moves, so the trader's profit is contracted from day one. The wholesaler will not ship millions of dollars of copper on a promise, and the end client will not pay until his copper has arrived and has been quality-checked. Someone has to fund the weeks in between. The Commodity Yield vault provides the financing: Through an SPV and fund structure, funds are lent to the trader to finance the trade. The cash sits in a segregated escrow account where the wholesaler can see it, and that is what gives him the confidence to ship. > The goods travel insured. The copper crosses the ocean covered by all-risk cargo insurance. If the ship sinks, the insurance pays. When the copper arrives and passes independent inspection, the escrow releases the funds to the wholesaler, and the end client pays his contracted $10 million The loan is repaid: The trader repays the loan plus interest, and that interest is the yield that flows back to the vault. The loan is covered the whole way through. Before shipment, it is matched by cash in escrow. Once the copper ships, the loan is covered by goods worth more than the loan itself: commodities bought at $9 million, already sold at $10 million. If the end buyer fails to pay for whatever reason, the Commodity Yield fund holds resellable copper purchased below its contracted sale price, and if necessary can sell it to another buyer. Deposit: Users deposit USDC into the Commodity Yield vault, signing a Loan Agreement, and receiving vault share tokens (kicUSDC), which track their share of the vault as it accrues interest. Deployment: Capital flows through Kamino's Institutional Yield structure to the Commodity Yield Fund, an approved fund supervised by CIMA. Lending: The fund originates short-term, fully collateralized Commodity Loans to corporate borrowers and commodity traders. Every transaction is contracted back to back: the borrower signs the purchase of the commodity at a discount and its onward sale to an end buyer at a fixed price at the same time, so the goods are already sold at a known price before the vault's capital funds the purchase. Returns: Interest and other income from the loan portfolio, net of fees and expenses, flows back through the structure to vault depositors. Share value appreciates as returns accrue. Withdrawals: A liquidity buffer is maintained to allow for instant withdrawals. Withdrawals beyond the buffer enter an on-chain first-in, first-out (FIFO) queue and settle as loans mature. Like any lending-based structure, Institutional Yield carries risk. including borrower default, collateral and market risk, custodian/escrow risk, and liquidity risk on withdrawals beyond the instant buffer — see [Risks Link] for the full disclosure before depositing. 4. Lending Criteria Commodity Yield funds are deployed strictly into loans that meet the following criteria: Speculative inventory positions, unsecured prepayments, and material unhedged commodity price exposure are outside the mandate. The lending operation does not face sanctioned jurisdictions, countries, individuals, or trading entities thereof. 5. A Typical Trade The numbers below are illustrative and rounded for clarity. A copper trader signs two contracts at the same time: a purchase contract for a shipment of copper cathodes at a discount to market, say $10M, and an onward sale contract to an end buyer at a fixed price, say $11M, the vault finances the $10M purchase. The capital sits in a segregated escrow account while the copper ships. At the delivery point, an independent inspection agency verifies quality and quantity. Thereafter, escrowed funds are released to the seller, and title passes to the Commodity Yield fund. Both legs often settle on the same day: the end buyer pays $11M, and principal plus margin returns to the segregated account, ready for the next shipment in the program. If the end buyer failed to perform, the fund would still hold title to copper bought at a discount and worth more than the loan, which it can sell to another buyer, though recovery timing and value depend on finding a replacement buyer and completing the sale. Any performance bond posted by the counterparty is also retained. 6. Why the Structure Matters Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield is structurally designed to maximize operational integrity and minimize risk. Overcollateralized or cash-covered at every stage of the trade Before shipment, financing sits in a segregated escrow account at a tier-one bank, or backs a letter of credit, so the loan is matched 1:1 by cash. After funds are released, title to the goods passes to the CIMA supervised fund, and the loan is collateralized by the commodity itself. The trade is designed so materially unhedged exposure to the physical commodity is minimized. A full security package on every trade Beyond the collateral itself, each loan is documented with legal protections around the financed trade: control over the escrow and designated accounts, assignment of receivables from end buyers, security interests over the commodities and related trade assets, and performance bonds from counterparties. Together these are designed to provide multiple contractual layers of downside protection. Independent verification before funds move Funds leave escrow only after internationally recognized inspection agencies (e.g. SGS, Intertek, Alfred H. Knight, or Alex Stewart) verify the shipment's quality and quantity against contractual specifications, and only against a complete documentary package covering invoices, certificates of origin, assay and weighbridge certificates, and transport documents. Insured cargo Financed goods are insured on an all-risk cargo basis for at least the full shipment value, with the financing entity (the Commodity Yield Fund) named as loss payee or co-insured, enabling direct claims for covered loss or damage. Regulatory oversight The Commodity Yield Fund is an approved fund supervised by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), with ongoing regulatory reporting and oversight. 7. A New Transparency Standard Existing products servicing off-chain borrow demand have historically operated with limited visibility into underlying positions. Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield sets a new precedent for what depositors can expect: continuous, granular visibility into the health and composition of the entire loan portfolio. Full portfolio data The Commodity Yield vault UI reflects the full loan portfolio data, sourced directly from the lending operation’s loan and risk management systems: each loan's principal, collateral type (escrowed cash or physical commodity), contractual collateral coverage, and approximate maturity, plus portfolio-level aggregates such as weighted collateral coverage, number of active loans, and total nominal exposure. Monthly independent attestation An independent accounting firm conducts monthly attestations covering aggregate and per-loan principal outstanding, collateral coverage, and key portfolio health indicators. Ongoing regulatory reporting The Commodity Yield Fund reports to the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority on an ongoing basis. Thus, the lending operation is subject to three independent verification layers: ongoing portfolio data stream, monthly third-party attestation, and ongoing regulatory reporting. 8. Kamino Institutional Commodity Yield vs On-Chain Lending Regulatory oversight applies to the lending operation; the vault, SPV, and Kamino are not regulated by CIMA or any other financial regulator. 9. Why This Matters Kamino Institutional Yield represents a new category of on-chain product. Real-economy borrowers, from commodity traders to institutions holding high-quality assets in custody, have significant, sustained demand for credit, and until now there has been no structure connecting that demand with on-chain liquidity in a way that is backed by a regulated lending operation, fully collateralized, and transparent. With Institutional Yield vaults, Kamino is launching that product. Commodity Yield is the first vault built on this infrastructure. A wide range of vaults, deploying across a diverse range of real-world opportunity can be built on this infrastructure. Reach out to @trader_marky for more details. The Commodity Yield USDC vault is now live. Documentation covering the full product structure, liquidity mechanic, risk disclosures, legal framework, and transparency mechanisms is available at: https://kamino.com/docs/products/institutional-yield Disclaimer This document is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, nor an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy, sell, or acquire any security, token, digital asset, or financial instrument, or to participate in any investment strategy. Use of Kamino Institutional Yield vaults is subject to Kamino's Terms and Conditions and geo-blocking policy. By accessing this page or interacting with the vaults, you confirm that you are not located in a restricted jurisdiction and that your participation complies with all laws and regulations applicable to you. Targeted APY figures are estimates only, are not guaranteed, and depend on the performance of the underlying loan portfolio; actual returns may be higher, lower, or zero, and deposited capital may be partially or fully lost. Deposits are not bank deposits and are not insured or protected by any deposit protection scheme. Past performance of Kamino's other products is not indicative of future results for Institutional Yield. Kamino's on-chain protocol and Institutional Yield vaults (including the Commodity Yield vault) are not themselves licensed, approved, or supervised as regulated financial services or products by CIMA, the FMA, or any other regulatory authority. References in this document to regulated funds, lending operations, or custodians relate exclusively to independent off-chain counterparties. Depositors should review the full Risk Disclosure and Loan Agreement before depositing.

Source:https://x.com/kamino/status/2084339349823672790