Katana Slices Through DeFi Norms—GSR and Polygon Labs Back Disruptor
DeFi’s status quo just got a challenger. Katana—fresh from incubation by trading giant GSR and Polygon Labs—is sharpening its blade to carve up inefficiencies in decentralized finance.
The stealth project promises to bypass legacy DeFi pain points (high fees, sluggish settlements, fragmented liquidity) with a architecture that leverages Polygon’s scaling muscle. No word yet on whether it’ll also solve crypto’s perennial ’governance token with no governance’ problem.
Wall Street veterans are watching closely—when they’re not busy explaining to clients why their tokenized T-bills yield less than a DeFi farming pool.
A Unified DeFi Experience
Unlike traditional DeFi networks that often suffer from fragmented liquidity and scattered yield opportunities, Katana integrates multiple sources of yield into a unified ecosystem. By concentrating liquidity within select protocols and leveraging up to five yield sources, Katana offers a streamlined experience for individual traders, whales, and institutions alike.
Katana is purpose-built for users seeking greater returns, providing them with access to advanced DeFi mechanisms that reduce friction. By minimizing slippage and providing more consistent lending and borrowing rates, the platform seeks to address key inefficiencies that persist in the broader DeFi space.
Industry Support and Infrastructure
GSR contributes by managing liquidity and facilitating cross-chain activity, while Polygon Labs has played an active role in Katana’s development from the outset.
“Katana reflects our commitment to fostering robust DeFi systems. Beyond capital support, we’re helping shape a foundation that enables sustainable yield generation and healthy liquidity,” said Jakob Palmstierna, President of GSR.
Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron added, “Katana’s ecosystem puts users first by prioritizing sustainable returns and accessible infrastructure. It’s a blueprint for growth in DeFi.”
Katana is built on a custom OP Stack variant – cdk-opgeth – secured via Agglayer and powered by zero-knowledge proofs provided by Succinct’s SP1 prover and Polygon’s Plonky3 system. The chain is operated in partnership with Conduit and uses its high-speed G2 Sequencer.
Liquidity and Asset Integration
At its core, Katana consolidates liquidity into a few key protocols:
- Morpho: for lending and borrowing
- Sushi: for spot DEX liquidity
- Vertex: for perpetual contracts and margin trading
In addition, Katana integrates services from:
- Agora: to issue AUSD, a native stablecoin
- Lombard: for liquid-staked LBTC
- Ether.Fi: for weETH, a wrapped ETH that earns additional staking rewards
- BitVault: for BTC-backed institutional liquidity
Through partnerships like Universal, the platform will also support non-native assets (e.g., XRP, SOL, SUI) and their liquid-staked variants, allowing users to trade these tokens without leaving the chain.
Yield Strategies and Ecosystem Design
Katana’s architecture is centered on five yield pillars:
Katana reinvests protocol revenue and sequencer fees into its ecosystem to maintain DEEP liquidity, minimize reliance on short-term incentives, and stabilize returns.
Maximizing Capital Efficiency
Unlike platforms that rely on idle value to inflate metrics, Katana actively deploys capital through lending, trading, and yield farming – either natively or via third-party protocols. This design ensures total value locked (TVL) is productive, contributing to both user gains and application development.
Introducing KAT: Native Governance and Alignment
The Foundation also unveiled KAT, Katana’s native token. KAT will align platform incentives and allow users to vote on emission allocations. Early adopters can earn KAT through a lootbox system by pre-depositing assets such as ETH, WBTC, USDC, or USDT. After a lockup period (up to nine months), users can convert KAT into veKAT to gain governance power.
This governance mechanism ensures emissions reward meaningful engagement and liquidity provision instead of short-term speculation.
Availability and Next Steps
Katana’s private mainnet is live, giving developers and early users access to Core features. Builders interested in joining can visit katana.network.
