Kamino Brings Sterling Lending Onchain With tGBP Market

TL;DR

• Kamino has opened a lending market for tGBP, a British-pound stablecoin issued by BCP Technologies.
• Users can supply tGBP or borrow it against collateral including USDC, cbBTC and JitoSOL.
• The market is curated by Steakhouse Financial and creates sterling-denominated credit on Solana.

Dollar stablecoins dominate DeFi, but Kamino is adding a different currency to the mix.

The Solana lending protocol has opened a market for tGBP, allowing users to borrow or supply a stablecoin designed to track the British pound.

The market is curated by Steakhouse Financial.

Sterling Can Now Be Borrowed Against Crypto Collateral

BCP Technologies issues tGBP as a token intended to track the pound on a one-to-one basis.

The firm is registered as a cryptoasset business with the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority.

On Kamino, users can supply tGBP to the lending market or borrow sterling-denominated liquidity against supported collateral including USDC, cbBTC and JitoSOL.

That creates a use case DeFi has historically struggled to serve.

A British user or business may want to borrow in pounds because its expenses and accounting are denominated in pounds.

Borrowing a dollar stablecoin instead introduces foreign-exchange exposure on top of the underlying loan.

A GBP-denominated market removes part of that mismatch.

DeFi Is Still Heavily Dollarized

The launch does not suddenly make sterling a major onchain currency.

Dollar stablecoins remain vastly larger and more liquid across crypto markets.

That liquidity advantage reinforces itself.

Borrowers want the assets with the deepest markets, while lenders prefer pools where there is consistent demand and easy exit liquidity.

Building a non-dollar lending market therefore requires more than creating the token.

It needs enough lenders and borrowers to keep rates competitive and liquidity usable.

Kamino’s tGBP market is a relatively small step, but it points toward a more mature version of onchain credit.

Real financial systems operate in many currencies.

If DeFi is going to serve businesses and users outside dollar-centric crypto trading, borrowing in local currencies has to become normal rather than unusual.

Sterling is now one more option on Solana.

The next test is whether users actually choose to take debt and earn yield in pounds when dollar liquidity remains so much deeper.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.