The Kava 11 Update.
On October 26th 2022, Kava’s Growth Engine got a massive upgrade. Among other improvements, one of the major changes was to allow Metamask signing of SDK transactions.
Let’s jump in and see what this latest upgrade meant for users and builders.
Foundation laid by Kava 10
Kava 10 laid the foundation for #CosmosEVM, which allows all of the Ethereum value to flow into the Kava Network through the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
With Kava Rise developer incentives worth $750M and a roadmap that proves Kava has much more in store for users, developers and protocols now have all the features of an ERC-20 compatible network.
Despite very limited functionality and usage, Kava EVM activity has ballooned in just a few months, reaching 320K+ total wrapped Kava since announcing the feature in May 2022. Similarly, Kava’s Ethereum Co-Chain has supported more than 5.5M transactions across over 1.89M wallet addresses.
Thanks largely to Kava Rise — a state-of-the-art incentives program to empower builders — Kava and its 40+ protocol ecosystem have climbed to the Top-15 leaderboard on DeFiLlama for the total number of protocols and DeFi TVL. The Kava Network holds roughly $250M in TVL, and the total addressable market and accessible value are several times that.
In the weeks following the Kava 11 upgrade, the Kava 3pool on Curve Finance reached $14M within the first few days of KAVA token rewards going live, launching Curve to the leading position of protocols by TVL on Kava behind only Kava Mint and Lend.
Shortly after Curve’s inclusion, Sushi completed its deployment to the Kava EVM. Users could instantly earn KAVA and SUSHI token rewards for providing liquidity to the wKAVA/USDC pool.
Sushi’s deployment also opened access to the protocol’s most-used dApps — Trident, Furo, BentoBox, and Onsen — all on Kava. Starting with Trident, all Sushi dApps deployed to Kava are eligible for Kava Rise rewards! Through these advancements, Sushi is on its way to becoming Kava’s #1 DEX.
There is no doubt that Kava is built for protocol growth based on the data. With Kava 11, the growth machine of Kava is running at full speed, fueling the rapid expansion of protocols in the ecosystem.
Kava Incentives 2.0
The next Kava upgrade comes with several quality-of-life upgrades that will improve the way you earn on Kava. Both sophisticated DeFi users and newbies searching for high yields will benefit from Kava’s accessibility and profitability. Let’s explore the key features and new protocols coming to the Kava Network.
Kava Liquid
Kava Liquid is the first-ever fully convertible liquid staking protocol, laying the foundation for unlocking all staked KAVA (bKAVA) for use in DeFi protocols on the Kava Network.
All other liquid staking providers like Lido retain a user’s voting power, so if 100% of staked ETH were performed through Lido, all of the voting power would be controlled by Lido. In contrast, Kava allows you to select a validator and retain your voting power while staking with Liquid, so even if users staked 100% of KAVA through Liquid, the Kava Network would remain sufficiently decentralized.
In addition, unlike with staked ETH, all staked KAVA is always 100% instantly convertible back to KAVA tokens, and unlike with staking derivatives in Lido, all bKAVA in Kava Liquid is always 100% instantly convertible back to staked KAVA.
To fully realize these benefits, Kava 11 will reallocate a significant portion of staking rewards into liquid staking and compounding strategies — Converting staked KAVA to bKAVA and supplying the bKAVA to the Earn and Boost modules (discussed below) will significantly increase your APY.
Kava Earn
Kava Earn is a yield optimizer for the most-used Ethereum tokens and stablecoins in the Kava Network. Kava Earn follows Multichain’s integration, allowing users to bridge assets from the Ethereum Mainnet, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Polygon, and Cronos into the Kava EVM. Starting with USDC, future releases will integrate several ERC-20 assets into the network (USDT, WETH, DAI, WBTC, etc.).
Kava Earn automates high-earning DeFi strategies for top Kava protocols, allowing developers to earn more rewards and amass additional resources to reward users through the Kava Rise incentives program.
Kava Boost
Kava Boost is a new protocol that supercharges your KAVA rewards. Its first application will be Kava’s new liquid staking feature, letting you supply your bKAVA to Boost for extra rewards.
The Kava Foundation
The Kava Network is forming a Foundation to safeguard network growth for the future. The Kava Foundation will enhance network security, aid network infrastructure development, and create new avenues of growth and innovation via Community Owned Liquidity.
The Kava Foundation formalizes the Kava Community Pool, an on-chain pool of funds controlled by KAVA delegators. The Community Pool has existed for almost three years and currently controls about $200M in assets.
As part of the formalization process, KAVA token inflation will flow to the Foundation. Unlike other community pools, the use of these funds will be controlled by a full KAVA governance vote by Kava delegators. That is Kava’s dedication to security and decentralization.
A portion of the Foundation Reserve becomes Community Owned Liquidity, unlocking the Kava Foundation’s KAVA funds to be used in top Kava protocols and funneling even more capital to protocols through the Kava Rise program.
MetaMask Signing of SDK Transactions
The final huge improvement in Kava 11 is the ability to interact with the Kava App and sign Cosmos SDK transactions directly through MetaMask, starting with $USDC.
Gone will be the days of complicated transactions and ERC-20 incompatibility. Users will soon be able to interact with Kava.cosmos balances with MetaMask after moving them from the EVM to Cosmos.
This upgrade condenses all three message signings into a single event via MetaMask: Bridge assets into Kava’s #CosmosEVM, supply to Kava Earn (on the Cosmos SDK side), then supply to Mint & Lend, all in a single transaction.
Follow-up releases will allow seamless movement of ERC-20 assets between Ethereum and Cosmos-based protocols deployed to Kava from a single transaction on MetaMask.
Challenging top protocols
Kava 11 will introduce staking derivatives that preserve voting power and create higher-APY opportunities.
In addition, the development of Kava Earn and the launch of Boost will simplify rewards on the Kava Network. Users can sign SDK transactions directly via MetaMask, optimizing workflow for stakers.
Kava has all elements of a top 10 DeFi network, challenging protocols like Avalanche. The developers are already here and bringing users and TVL with them.
