Kava Labs has launched its first application: a yield-generating decentralized finance (DeFi) platform for bitcoin (BTC) and other non-Ethereum assets.
The product, called Harvest and built on the Kava blockchain, allows users to stake their crypto so it can be lent out to other users. Harvest will initially support deposits of BTC, BNB, BUSD and XRP. Soon, Kava Labs plans to debut automated market makers (AMMs) like Uniswap and robo-advisors like Yearn.Finance on the blockchain as well, said Kava Labs CEO Brian Kerr.
Similar to DeFi platform MakerDAO, Kava will allow users to create collateralized debt positions (CDPs) on the Kava protocol in exchange for a stablecoin, USDX, pegged one-to-one with the U.S. dollar. Unlike Maker, though, Kava works with assets outside the Ethereum ecosystem that have largely watched the DeFi craze from afar.
Kava Labs is backed by several large exchanges, including Binance, Huobi and OKEx, which stake kava tokens and participate in the blockchain’s governance.
Kerr said that Harvest was inspired by Aave and Compound, but that Harvest will bring the same capabilities that these protocols have to a larger array of digital assets.
“When we were building out Harvest, we saw the design paradigm already working,” Kerr said. “What we can bring to the table is unlocking these much larger-market-cap assets and giving them the same type of lending and borrowing functionality.”
Harvest users who borrow or lend on the app will be paid their interest and HARD tokens, the governance token of Harvest, which will also be used to incentivize liquidity on the platform.
Kava is built on the Tendermint consensus algorithm, which is also employed by the Cosmos blockchain interoperability project. Kava conducted an initial exchange offering (IEO) on Binance in October and counts Arrington XRP Capital as an investor.