Institutions can now borrow against staked Solana while keeping assets in regulated custody
Anchorage Digital has partnered with Kamino and Solana Company to create a new structure that allows institutions to borrow against their staked Solana holdings. What’s interesting is that the assets do not need to leave regulated custody. This could help bridge some gaps between traditional financial markets and decentralized lending markets.
On Friday, Anchorage announced that its Atlas collateral management platform is growing through integration with Kamino. Kamino is a decentralized lending protocol built on Solana. The collaboration includes Solana Company, which is a publicly traded Solana treasury that was created with Pantera Capital and Summer Capital.
How the borrowing structure works
In this setup, institutions can use their native SOL as collateral for on-chain borrowing. The assets stay where they are: at Anchorage Digital Bank, which is a federally chartered crypto bank. This means investors continue to earn their rewards while accessing liquidity through Kamino’s lending marketplaces.
Anchorage acts as collateral manager here. They oversee loan-to-value ratios, margin requirements and manage liquidations if necessary. Since the collateral remains kept separately, institutions do not need to transfer their assets into smart contracts. This requirement has been a sticking point for regulated entities in the past.
Regulatory landscape remains uncertain
This integration shows growing institutional interest in decentralized finance, but it occurs against a backdrop of regulatory uncertainty in the United States. Lawmakers are still figuring out how to oversee digital assets and DeFi platforms.
The CLARITY Act is at the center of this debate. It is meant to establish clearer jurisdictional boundaries and regulatory standards for digital assets, including DeFi protocols. Although the bill aims to reduce uncertainty, some DeFi supporters believe it does not go far enough in how decentralized protocols, developers, and governance structures should be treated by law.
Industry groups have raised concerns about the earlier draft text, including amendments introduced in January. They say it does not sufficiently distinguish between centralized intermediaries and decentralized systems.
With the future of the CLARITY Act hanging in the balance, the Trump administration recently called a meeting with industry representatives. The goal was to break the impasse and gather feedback on outstanding provisions related to DeFi oversight and market structure.
I think this development with Anchorage and Kamino is interesting because it shows that institutions are finding ways to participate in DeFi while working within existing regulatory frameworks. It’s a sort of middle-of-the-road approach. But the generalization of this model depends to a large extent on the evolution of the regulatory framework in the months to come.
