Kamino Becomes First Major DeFi Lender to Accept Tokenized Stocks as Collateral

Kamino on Monday announced it has integrated xStocks on Kamino Lend – the largest lending protocol on the Solana blockchain, with a total value locked (TVL) of $2.3 billion – to let users borrow crypto using tokenized stocks as collateral.

xStocks, launched on June 30 by Backed, are tokenized stocks pegged 1:1 to the real-world shares they represent. xStocks supports more than 60 stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) so far, including Apple (AAPL) and Tesla (TSLA). These assets, which are available on-chain 24/7, can be used as collateral to borrow stablecoins on Kamino, according to a press release viewed by The Defiant.

Chainlink will serve as the official price feed provider for Kamino’s xStocks integration. Through its custom-built xStocks oracle, Chainlink will deliver sub-second price updates for tokenized equities.

The integration makes Kamino Lend, which is deploying xStocks using its v2 infrastructure, the first major lending protocol in decentralized finance (DeFi) to employ tokenized equities as collateral, representing a huge milestone for DeFi.

“Today is a monumental step, not only for Kamino, but for broader DeFi itself,” the release reads. “Permissionless financial rails are maturing, and beginning to encompass TradFi use cases in a way that is more efficient, accessible, and transparent.”

This launch is part of a broader trend where traditional finance (TradFi) and DeFi are intersecting to further on-chain accessibility.

Real-world assets (RWAs) are increasingly being brought onto blockchains, allowing people to trade and borrow against them in a permissionless and automated way, and tokenized RWAs represent one of the fastest-growing sectors in DeFi.

Total RWA value on-chain currently stands at over $25 billion – up around 7% in the past month and more than 56% since January, according to RWA.xyz.

Kamino says it aims to become a one-stop shop where users can swap, lend, borrow, or leverage any kind of on-chain asset.

The DeFi integration comes just weeks after cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced the launch of tokenized U.S. stocks for non-U.S. users through xStocks. So far, xStocks has been integrated across five centralized exchanges (CEXs): Bybit, Kraken, Bitget, and Gate, all of which enable these assets to be transferred to Solana.