Kamino Liquidity

Kamino Liquidity automates concentrated-liquidity positions on Solana AMMs, setting ranges, rebalancing, and compounding fees. DefiLlama recorded about $87.6M on 2026-08-14. Automation manages the position; it does not remove the exposure. A concentrated range amplifies impermanent loss, because the pool trades the depositor’s assets against every price move inside the band, and rebalancing realises those losses. The client would see a shortfall they were never told to expect in a position we recommended, which is the exact outcome the AMM class rule exists to prevent. A product line without IL exposure would merit its own review.

Review triggers: events that reopen the verdict
• Ships a product line without impermanent-loss exposure that merits its own review

Watched nightly: a warning on its venues or files, or a cited document that changes, reopens the memo. The first confirmation is due 2026-11-15.

The research file

Mechanism

A vault deposits two assets into an underlying concentrated-liquidity market maker and issues fungible kTokens. It earns swap fees only while its range is active plus any pool incentives. Kamino can auto-swap a one-sided deposit into the required ratio, harvest and compound rewards, and move the range when the strategy calls for a rebalance.

Control and operating evidence

Vault strategy determines the DEX, pair, width and rebalance behavior; the underlying DEX controls its pool contracts and fee logic. Kamino dates the product to August 2022 and publishes the mechanism and smart-contract resources. Longevity and automation are useful evidence, but they do not remove token, DEX, oracle, manager or Solana execution dependencies.

Exit consequences

Burning kTokens withdraws the vault’s current two-asset inventory; optional auto-swap routes that inventory through Jupiter into the requested token. If price has moved, the returned mix reflects AMM trading rather than the original deposit, and a rebalance may already have crystallized divergence. Slippage and available DEX liquidity govern single-token exit.

Why the class rule decides

Kamino’s own documentation expressly identifies impermanent loss as structural to liquidity provision. Automation reduces maintenance and out-of-range time, not inventory loss. The AMM-LP class therefore decides without a negative judgment on Kamino’s engineering. A separately tracked lending product would require its own memo and basis.

Class rule

The amm lp class is outside the approved structures, so every protocol in it is not approved until the rule changes. The rule is about the structure, not an adverse finding about this protocol, and it is not a client instruction. The events that would reopen it are listed with the memo.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

• Kamino Docs — automated liquidity product · primary · accessed 2026-08-14
  Supports: CLMM vault mechanism, impermanent loss, fees, kTokens, range management
• Kamino Docs — auto-swap deposits and withdrawals · primary · accessed 2026-08-14
  Supports: single-sided deposit, Jupiter swap, single-token exit
• DefiLlama — Kamino Liquidity survey record · secondary · accessed 2026-08-14
  Supports: survey TVL, Solana deployment, liquidity-manager category

Inherited controls

The research above describes the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The layer with the most administrative power sets the position’s effective control; that describes control, not quality or suitability.