what's Kintsu?
Kintsu is a liquid staking protocol designed for high-performance blockchains like Monad and Hyperliquid. It enables users to stake their native tokens while maintaining liquidity through staked derivatives such as sMON and sHYPE, allowing seamless integration into DeFi applications. The protocol emphasizes composability, where staked assets can be used across lending, trading, and yield farming without lockups, fostering capital efficiency in emerging ecosystems. At its core, Kintsu features a DAO-driven validator registry and a stake-delegation marketplace, governed by an onchain representative democracy to ensure decentralized curation and security. Users delegate stakes to vetted validators, earning yields that are automatically compounded and distributed via the liquid tokens. This setup supports ecosystem growth by incentivizing validator participation and providing builders with reliable staking primitives, all while prioritizing security through audited smart contracts and multi-collateral mechanisms.
Kintsu integrates Mayan & Layer3 for cross-chain swap, bridge, and auto-stake zaps.
contract
hyperevm
Integrated with Mayan and Layer3 to enable cross-chain swap, bridge, and auto-stake functionality in a single flow through zaps.
Reached $5.2M TVL for SMON liquid staking pool on Monad chain, with 14.53% APR (30-day average 16.10%). SuperMON vaults yield 14.51% APY.
Curvance partners with Kintsu for a points campaign offering 5x boost on sMON deposits across Monad and 10x boost for wMON deposits in the sMON|wMON market for this week, described as the largest points campaign in Monad DeFi history.
Two weeks post-launch, Kintsu holds $1.43M in TVL on Monad.
The protocol now holds ~$1.4M TVL and ~34M MON staked (1 MON = 0.9993 sMON), showing growth from the previous 24.5M MON and $1.11M TVL, ranking 10th among top Monad protocols by TVL.
The protocol holds 24.5M MON (~$1.11M) in TVL, ranking second among Monad liquid staking protocols.
Kintsu operates a liquid staking protocol on Monad with a 0.1% unstake fee that a trader considers too high compared to competitors, though the UI is described as clean.
Goes live on Monad mainnet, launching sMON as a capital-efficient liquid staking token with on-chain validator selection.
Partners with Curvance for direct LST integration into their unified liquidity layer, allowing users to supply, borrow, loop, and earn boosted rewards.
Identified as a staking platform on Monad blockchain ahead of imminent mainnet launch.
Monad mainnet is approaching launch, with the protocol listed among notable staking applications in the Monad ecosystem worth watching.
Listed among DeFi projects planning Token Generation Events in Q4.
Raised $4M. Native liquid staking protocol for Monad. Currently accepting applications through their website.