Kamino Opens Apyx Market, Letting apyUSD Holders Borrow USDC on Solana

Kamino Finance KMNO$0.039-2.8% opened a lending market for Apyx's yield-bearing dollar token on 6 October 2026. In a post announcing the Apyx Market, Kamino said apyUSD "can now be used as collateral to access USDC liquidity through Kamino's isolated credit market", with Hyperithm as curator. Apyx, the token's issuer, confirmed the listing ten minutes later.

The pitch is about time. Redeeming apyUSD with Apyx takes roughly 20 days, and the Kamino market lets a holder raise USDC against the token the same day.

What apyUSD is and what backs it

apyUSD is the yield-earning version of Apyx's dollar token, apxUSD. Holders deposit apxUSD into a vault and receive apyUSD, and the yield comes from dividends on the protocol's collateral, according to Apyx's documentation.

That collateral is unusual for a dollar token. Kamino's description of apyUSD says the reserve is "primarily composed of preferred equity from publicly traded Digital Asset Treasury companies, including Strategy's STRC". Digital asset treasury companies are listed firms that hold crypto on their balance sheets, and preferred equity such as STRC is a class of share that pays dividends ahead of common stock. Apyx's FAQ says the company "obtains monthly accounting attestations from a PCAOB-registered audit firm", a statement Solana Compass has not independently checked.

Apyx's risk disclosures say apxUSD "is not designed as a strict 1-1 peg instrument" and that the dividends behind apyUSD's yield can be reduced, suspended or delayed.

How a 20-day redemption meets same-day USDC borrowing

Leaving apyUSD through Apyx is slow by design. The documentation describes a request, a cooldown of about 20 days during which no yield accrues, then a claim. A faster route becomes claimable after three days for an early-redemption fee that starts at 3.5% and falls to 0.1% the longer the holder waits. Apyx's main vault sits on Ethereum, so a holder on another chain has to bridge back there before unlocking, according to the Apyx FAQ.

Borrowing on Kamino skips that wait, and the borrower takes on interest and liquidation risk in exchange. Kamino's public market data listed a maximum loan-to-value of 70% for apyUSD on 6 October 2026, which works out to as much as 70 USDC borrowed per $100 of collateral value. Under Kamino's liquidation rules, once a loan crosses a market's liquidation threshold a third party can repay part of the debt and take the matching collateral plus a bonus. The curator tunes those parameters. Kamino's market data did not show the Apyx Market's liquidation threshold, deposit caps or price oracle, and neither announcement gave them.

A liquidator who seizes apyUSD faces the same redemption terms as any other holder, and the market's USDC lenders depend on that collateral being sold or redeemed.

Hyperithm's curator role and the Apyx Market's first hour

Hyperithm already curates a USDC vault on Kamino, which Solana Compass covered in July 2026. The Apyx Market is a separate pool with two assets, USDC and apyUSD. Kamino has opened curated markets around a single new asset before, including its sterling tGBP market in September 2026.

The Apyx Market was close to empty in its first hour. At about 16:20 UTC on 6 October 2026, Kamino's market data showed roughly 1.1 million USDC supplied, nothing borrowed, and 0.1 apyUSD posted as collateral. The collateral that could arrive is limited by how much of the token is on Solana: Solana Compass's token index put apyUSD's supply on Solana at about 3.5 million tokens across roughly 40 holding wallets on 6 October 2026. Kamino also pointed users to a Multiply vault for the apyUSD and USDC pair, Kamino's product for taking leveraged exposure to yield-bearing assets.