Kamino Says Its AUTO Market Passed $170M a Month After Fixed-Rate Borrowing Launched

Kamino Finance KMNO$0.041+2.5% said on 21 October 2026 that its AUTO market, a lending market built around a token backed by US car loans, has crossed $170M in deposits. Kamino said the market grew about 8x over the past month, after the 21 September launch of Kamino Fixed Rates, its fixed-rate borrowing product on Solana.

The post came a day after Kamino's Business Wire release said the AUTO market grew from $10M to $135M in three weeks. The two growth figures use different starting points and windows, so each stands on its own.

What the AUTO token is: tokenized US auto loans from Hastra and Figure

AUTO is a yield-bearing token minted through Hastra wYLDS$1.000+0.2% that gives holders exposure to US consumer auto loans financed through Figure's Democratized Prime marketplace, according to Kamino's release. Hastra says the loans are originated by Agora and brought onchain via Figure Forge. We covered the AUTO launch on Solana in July, when the token started at a few million units. The other side of the AUTO market is wYLDS, a yield-bearing receipt token also minted through Hastra, which borrowers take out against their AUTO.

How Kamino Fixed Rates created a leveraged auto-loan loop

Kamino Fixed Rates lets a borrower lock in a rate for rolling 30-day terms instead of paying a variable rate that moves with demand, much as a homebuyer picks between a fixed and a variable mortgage. Kamino opened its first fixed-rate Multiply vault at 5.3%, and later markets priced at 5.75% and 6%, according to the release. Borrowers took out $10M in fixed-rate loans in the first 72 hours and more than $40M in the first two weeks, the release says.

The typical position is a loop. A user deposits AUTO, borrows wYLDS at the fixed rate, converts it into more AUTO through Hastra, and deposits that too, up to 4.5x leverage through Kamino Multiply per the release. The position pays while AUTO's yield stays above the fixed borrowing cost. Because borrowed money goes back in as a deposit, a looped market's deposit total can grow faster than the fresh capital entering it.

In the release, Kamino CEO Michael Weisz said fixed rates give borrowers stability and the ability to forecast their costs, and that he believes this is what will make the product scale.

Hastra's AUTO supply grew 7.5x in Solana Compass on-chain data

Kamino's $170M is a market-level deposit figure that Kamino did not break down, and it cannot be reproduced from token data. What can be measured is the AUTO token itself. Solana Compass's AUTO token data shows total supply rising from about 11.7 million tokens on 21 September to about 88.6 million on 20 October, roughly 7.5x, while holder accounts rose from about 330 to about 650.

Solana Compass token data put AUTO supply near 98.5 million tokens on 22 October, worth about $101M at a price of roughly $1.02, in line with Hastra's 21 October post that AUTO had passed $100M in TVL. Supply grew about 7.5x while holder accounts roughly doubled, so most of the growth came from larger positions. Token supply and Kamino's market deposits are different measures.

Risks of tokenized car-loan yield: credit, liquidation and exit liquidity

AUTO's yield depends on US consumers repaying their car loans, so a rise in auto-loan defaults would reach token holders. Looped positions are also margin loans: Kamino's release lists liquidation risk and the possibility of total loss, and says renewals of fixed-rate terms are not guaranteed.

Getting out of AUTO works differently from selling a liquid token. On 22 October our token data showed about $9,100 of AUTO trading on decentralized exchanges over 24 hours and no listed DEX liquidity, so unwinding a position relies on Hastra's mint-and-redeem route rather than an open market sale. The AUTO mint also keeps an active freeze authority held by a program address.

Kamino's RWA markets and what comes next for fixed-rate credit on Solana

Kamino says it now runs more than $750M in real-world asset markets and has originated more than $21B in loans with no bad debt, per the release. The AUTO market is an early test of whether fixed-rate terms bring borrowers to tokenized credit on Solana. Kamino's own view, in its 20 October post: "This is just the beginning for fixed-rate credit on Solana."