Cross-chain DeFi Players from the Polkadot and COSMOS Ecosystems Join Forces

MANTRA DAO is Pleased to Announce its Latest Validator Partnership — with Kava

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MANTRA

4 min readSep 11, 2020

MANTRA DAO is happy to reveal our third ecosystem partnership this week. Following up with our previous Cosmos partnerships with Band Protocol and Terra, we at the DAO are proud to share some of the details of another new venture with cross-chain lending stalwart Kava. Kava’s DeFi unique platform enables token holders to earn a high yield on assets such as BNB and will soon expand to include BTC, XRP and other crypto assets with high economic bandwidth. With just the native token of the Binance Chain as their collateral asset for Kava CDP’s, they have managed to attract a Total Value Locked (TVL) in the protocol of over $31 million.

As a result of our partnership with Kava, MANTRA DAO will run a Kava validation node, paving the way for integrating Kava’s staking services directly into MANTRA DAO and earning yield on cross-chain assets. What’s most exciting is that the MANTRA DAO community will soon be able to delegate KAVA to the MANTRA DAO validator and use that delegation to liquidity mine the OM token, further increasing the utility of the OM token.

We are also exploring the possibility of introducing support for KAVA as collateral within the MANTRA DAO lending platform, and for potentially adding a similar arrangement for OM on Kava’s lending platform.

Why Kava?

Kava provides the framework for secure storage and staking of crypto assets. Like MANTRA DAO, Kava is on a mission to bring the tools for decentralized finance to a mainstream audience. The path to adoption requires easy-to-use and beautiful interfaces to interact with services for staking, saving, borrowing, and lending. Kava has been integrated into Binance.com, allowing users to earn an APR on self-custodied assets. As Binance Launchpad Project of the Year in 2020, Kava has a high pedigree and a track record for shipping innovative products fast.

Kava currently offers staking for BNB and will soon be adding support for BUSD and BTC. Users can connect to the Kava app using their Ledger, Trust Wallet or Cosmostation to borrow USDX stablecoin. To date, Kava has disbursed almost $1.2 million in KAVA rewards to lenders on its DeFi platform.

There is a natural overlap between Kava’s lending platform and the broad cross-chain DeFi ecosystem that MANTRA DAO is building brick by brick. By partnering together, we hope to build a bridge between the Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystem, which includes the exciting new Binance Smart Chain.

What to Expect from MANTRA DAO x Kava Partnership

Decentralized finance is all about composability: taking pre-assembled building blocks and combining them to unlock new capabilities and reach new markets. In refining the tools for open finance, we’re building upon the great work that has already been done in the DeFi space, while leveraging strategic partnerships that will lift all projects that are committed to realizing this goal.

While integrating Kava staking into MANTRA DAO is the first step in this our latest partnership, there’s plenty more to come. As MANTRA DAO develops, we look forward to sharing further news of our alliance with Kava, and the opportunities for growth presented by this alliance. Building out the MANTRA DAO ecosystem, with the support of our community, is our number one priority. Now that community includes KAVA token holders as well and we couldn’t be more excited about it. Stay with us on our journey to build real DeFi from the grassroots level.

We’re just getting started!

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About Kava

Kava is a multi-asset DeFi platform that offers stablecoins, loans, and other financial services for users of major cryptocurrency assets including BTC, XRP, BNB and ATOM to name a few. The Kava platform has two types of tokens, the KAVA token and the USDX stablecoin where the KAVA token is the native token of the Kava blockchain integral in the security, governance, and mechanical functions of the platform. Users can collateralize their crypto assets in exchange for Kava’s stablecoin, USDX. USDX is the highest earning USD denominated account available for modern investors, offering superior yields without additional risk, compared to traditional alternatives like checking and savings accounts that only deliver miniscule returns.

About MANTRA DAO

MANTRA DAO is a community-governed DeFi platform focusing on Staking, Lending, and Governance.

MANTRA DAO leverages the wisdom of the crowd to create a community-governed, transparent, and decentralized ecosystem for web 3.0. Built on Parity Substrate for the Polkadot ecosystem, MANTRA DAO gives financial control back to the people to store and grow wealth together.