Katana, a brand new DeFi-first layer-2 blockchain, went stay on mainnet with over $200 million in pre-deposits simply weeks after its public reveal, making it some of the capitalized debuts of any layer-2 community this yr, based on a Monday announcement.
Developed by the Katana Basis, the Polygon Agglayer Breakout Program graduate is designed to assist high-yield decentralized finance exercise at scale. Katana integrates with decentralized trade Sushi and lending protocol Morpho, providing incentives to liquidity suppliers.
Not like conventional fashions that concern new tokens to incentivize participation, Katana’s design integrates yields from a number of sources, together with VaultBridge methods, which allow customers to earn native Ethereum yields inside Katana’s ecosystem, Chain-owned Liquidity (CoL) reserves and AUSD-backed treasury flows.
By means of its launch accomplice, Common, Katana permits buying and selling of common non-Ethereum Digital Machine tokens like SOL (SOL), XRP (XRP) and SUI (SUI) straight onchain. Common has additionally built-in with Coinbase Prime to assist institutional-grade custody and minting of supported belongings without having decentralized exchange-based pre-seeded liquidity.
Associated: Polygon-backed, high-yield blockchain Katana launches for institutional adoption
Chatting with Cointelegraph, Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, mentioned Katana’s main purpose is “to deal with the liquidity calls for of the Agglayer ecosystem whereas assembly customers’ wants for deeper liquidity and better yields.”
“Belongings aren’t simply idle — they’re actively deployed, driving actual utilization, sequencer charges and app-level charges, all of which circulation again into sustaining deeper liquidity,” he added.
Katana has earmarked round 15% of its KAT token provide for an upcoming airdrop to Polygon (POL) token stakers, together with these holding liquid staking derivatives. The transfer goals to reward early supporters and deepen ties to the broader modular Ethereum ecosystem.
Katana measures asset effectiveness with productive TVL
Katana introduces a brand new benchmark for measuring DeFi capital effectivity: productive complete worth locked (TVL). Not like conventional metrics that observe idle asset deposits, productive TVL solely accounts for capital actively deployed into yield-generating methods or core DeFi protocols. Forward of its mainnet launch, Katana accrued over $200 million in productive TVL.
Katana mentioned its coordinated yield mechanisms flip passive capital right into a self-circulating financial engine. VaultBridge redirects bridged belongings reminiscent of Ether (ETH), USDC (USDC), USDt (USDT) and wBTC (WBTC) into offchain yield-bearing positions, totally on Ethereum. These returns are looped again into Katana’s onchain DeFi swimming pools, benefiting customers who maintain their belongings in movement. Chain-owned liquidity goals to make sure sequencer charges are constantly recycled into liquidity reserves.
Boiron defined the advantages of “productive TVL” to Cointelegraph, saying it “gives a clearer image of what’s actually taking place behind the scenes.”
He added, “It displays precise utilization, financial effectivity and long-term sustainability.”
The launch follows latest DeFi infrastructure advances, together with Agora’s AUSD, a yield-bearing stablecoin that channels returns from US Treasury and repo markets into Katana’s protocols. These flows, mixed with Katana’s good yield routing, type the inspiration of its productive TVL mannequin.
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