Kraken's On-Chain Gambit: A Comprehensive Overview of the Ink Ecosystem
Original author: angelilu, Foresight News
"US institutional chains" are becoming an important force in the new round of public chain competition. The recently noticed Robinhood Chain and Circle's Arc are backed by a brokerage firm and a stablecoin issuer, respectively. Such public chains have users, capital gateways, or mature financial products from the very start, and how to bring existing businesses on-chain has become their common competitive direction. In this wave, the Ink ecosystem launched by crypto exchange Kraken is also worth attention.
Ink's mainnet went live as early as December 18, 2024, built on OP Stack and using ETH to pay Gas fees. In July 2025, Kraken disclosed plans to integrate the INK token and the Ink protocol into its core products, and the token issuance has also become one of the reasons the ecosystem continues to attract attention. Kraken has also been active recently, first launching the wrapped HYPE token kHYPE on the Ink network, and planning to deploy a Hyperliquid-based perpetual contract market for US users.
Leveraging Kraken's exchange gateway and OP Stack's Superchain infrastructure, Ink has chosen to enter through DeFi. As of September 22, 2026, Ink's DeFi total value locked is approximately $211 million, and its stablecoin market cap is approximately $173 million. Currently, its ecosystem covers lending, perpetual trading, token issuance, and tokenized assets, among other directions. Below is an overview of active projects in the Ink ecosystem.
Lending and DEX
Tydro: Ink's largest lending market
Tydro is currently Ink's largest lending protocol. It builds a non-custodial lending market based on the Aave V3 architecture, where users can deposit assets to earn interest or collateralize assets to borrow stablecoins or other tokens.
DefiLlama data shows that Tydro's current TVL is $141 million. Over the past 30 days, its TVL grew by about 124%, generating approximately $193,100 in fees and $20,900 in protocol revenue.
Tydro attracts users to deposit and borrow assets through the "Tydro Ink Points" points campaign. Season 2, launched on September 9, further introduced a boost mechanism, granting up to a 50% points weight boost based on conditions such as users' early participation records, lending history, and kBTC holdings, allowing eligible users to obtain a larger share in the same reward pool.
Nado: Spot and perpetual contract DEX
Nado puts spot, perpetual contracts, and money markets into a unified margin account, uses an off-chain sequencer for high-speed matching, and relies on Ink for on-chain settlement. Its NLP vault provides liquidity to the market, and traders can manage collateral and positions across different markets in the same account.
Nado's current TVL is $54.37 million, up about 4.7% over the past 30 days. Although its capital scale is smaller than Tydro's, trading activity is its more prominent feature: during the same period, perpetual contract trading volume reached $8.668 billion, and the platform generated approximately $1.54 million in fees and $876,900 in protocol revenue. Currently, the platform's open interest is approximately $45.03 million, and liquidation volume over the past 30 days is approximately $14.95 million. By comparison, its spot trading volume over the past 30 days was only $13.12 million, with perpetual contracts constituting Nado's main trading business.
In terms of user incentives, Nado also encourages participation through platform points, benefits from the official NFT "Templars of the Storm," xPoints boosts, and trading competition rewards.
Around Nado's trading demand, tools offering different operating methods and auxiliary functions have also appeared in the ecosystem:
Nadobro focuses on executing trades through text commands and provides copy trading and strategy execution functions;
Trade provides grid trading, copy trading, and wallet analysis. They extend Nado's trading services to more use cases, giving users options beyond the official interface.
https://x.com/TemplarsTrade
Yield Vaults and Strategies
Veda and Sentora: The infrastructure behind Kraken DeFi Earn
Veda is a multi-chain yield vault infrastructure that grew out of the Ethereum ecosystem. Its total TVL is currently approximately $1.929 billion, covering 13 chains, of which TVL attributable to Ink is approximately $896 million (Veda's vault scale involves cross-chain strategy allocation and differs from the statistical scope of Ink's chain-level DeFi TVL), accounting for 46.5%, making Ink its largest deployment network by TVL.
Its development on Ink is closely tied to its cooperation with Kraken: in January 2026, the two parties collaborated to launch DeFi Earn covering Ethereum and Ink. Users can select yield products within Kraken and deposit funds into Veda vaults to participate in on-chain yield strategies.
Sentora, meanwhile, handles the strategy design and risk management of these vaults. In Kraken DeFi Earn, Kraken provides the user gateway, Veda provides the vault infrastructure, and Sentora is responsible for selecting underlying protocols, allocating capital, and monitoring risk, with strategies covering lending, liquidity provision, and other directions. According to Sentora's disclosure, as of July 2026, the balance of the four Kraken yield vaults it participates in managing had exceeded $600 million, with more than 80,000 active depositors, covering stablecoin and Bitcoin products.
For Ink, this provides a path to directly capture exchange users: users can access on-chain yield products through the familiar Kraken interface without having to individually select and operate underlying protocols themselves.
Launchpad and Trading Hub
InkyPump and InkySwap
InkyLabs has developed the token issuance platform InkyPump and the trading product InkySwap around Ink. The two share infrastructure; the former allows creators to raise ETH through a bonding curve and, once fundraising conditions are met, migrates token liquidity to a Uniswap V4 pool; the latter provides broader asset trading, with coverage not limited to tokens issued by InkyPump.
DefiLlama shows that InkySwap's current TVL is approximately $981,900, up about 64.9% over the past 30 days, with 362 active addresses in 24 hours. Compared with Tydro and Nado, this is still a small market, but a group of tokens with Ink community recognition has already emerged:
- ANITA is currently one of the largest native trading assets on InkySwap. Its ANITA/WETH pool has a market cap of approximately $1.77 million and liquidity of approximately $142,900.
- BEAST is a concept token based on Kraken's mascot. BEAST's market cap is approximately $1.41 million, and its main pool liquidity is approximately $106,400.
- BERT comes directly from InkyPump and has developed applications such as inscriptions, NFTs, and Telegram tools around Ink's early community culture; its main trading pool has a market cap of approximately $159,900 and liquidity of approximately $36,500.
In addition, tokens such as PURPLE, KRAKMASK, DOG, AK47, and SHROOMY also form InkySwap's long-tail market. Most of them still belong to community Meme assets, with individual pool liquidity ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to more than $100,000. InkyPump has now also added an issuance option using xStocks as the quote asset, allowing creators to choose ETH or approved tokenized stock assets to establish an issuance curve. This extends its positioning from an Ink version of Pump.fun toward an issuance market at the intersection of Meme and tokenized stocks.
Although InkyPump is a token issuance protocol native to the Ink ecosystem, it has already expanded to support Robinhood Chain.
Tsunami and Calamari
Tsunami, which launched on Ink in September, adopts a bonding curve issuance model. After tokens meet graduation conditions on the curve, the raised funds migrate to Calamari's V4 liquidity pool. After tokens complete fundraising on the curve, liquidity migrates to Calamari's Uniswap V4 pool, so its TVL only counts quote assets still on the issuance curve (approximately $44,100), while graduated projects are no longer included. However, cumulative trading volume of assets after launch reached approximately $3.86 million, generating approximately $2,943 in fees and $2,131 in protocol revenue over the past 30 days.
Calamari adopts an architecture similar to Uniswap V4, extending liquidity pool functionality through Hooks; according to DefiLlama data, its TVL is approximately $167,700, and its trading volume over the past 24 hours is approximately $11,200.
Tsunami has been online for a relatively short time and has not yet formed leading assets like ANITA, BEAST, and BERT that can represent the platform.
Hookit: A token issuance platform supporting composable trading mechanisms
Hookit is a token issuance platform built on Ink based on Uniswap V4 Hooks, offering two issuance methods: direct pool creation and bonding curves. The former establishes a trading pool simultaneously when creating a token, while the latter migrates to Uniswap V4 after raising assets equivalent to approximately 4.2 ETH. Creators can combine mechanisms such as anti-sniping, automatic burning, and liquidity replenishment, and choose ETH, USDG, or Quotrons wrapped stock assets to establish trading pairs.
Hookit has issued the token HKT. HKT is the platform's protocol token. According to project documentation, of the 1% base trading fee, 10% is used to buy the issued token in the corresponding pool and then distribute it to HKT holders by weight; another portion of protocol revenue is used to buy back and burn HKT. The platform page has already showcased projects such as HKT, Hook Me Up, and Anchor. As of publication, HKT's FDV is approximately $738,000, and the platform is still in the stage of attracting attention through its own token.
Otomate: Meme launcher and NFT minting tool
Otomate provides Meme token issuance and companion NFT creation tools through otomate.fun. Creators can issue their own tokens and configure a companion NFT series for the project, which the platform calls a "Companion NFT." Tokens are first traded through a bonding curve and transferred to a liquidity pool after meeting graduation conditions; after the companion series opens for minting, users can burn the project's tokens to mint NFTs and participate in fee rewards according to project rules. Otomate also has the platform token OTO. As of publication, its FDV is approximately $6.9 million, and part of the trading fees are used to buy back and burn OTO according to the rules.
On the trading tools side, Otomate.trade integrates spot, perpetual contracts, strategies, and portfolio management into the same interface, and provides an AI assistant, oTo, to help users understand market events, screen copy traders, and generate trading plans. The platform also provides gateways to connect services such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Telegram, supporting access to market information and assisting trading decisions through conversation.
Sentry: A token issuance platform supporting tokenized stock pairs
Sentry is a token issuance platform deployed on Ink and Robinhood Chain, supporting one-click token creation and trading pool establishment, with creators able to receive part of the trading fees. In addition to WETH, the platform also supports tokenized stocks as pair assets, connecting token issuance with the on-chain liquidity of stock-like assets.
RWA and Tokenization
Mavrk: Tokenized equity issuance infrastructure
Mavrk attempts to bring corporate equity issuance to Ink, building tools around issuance caps, treasury management, holder governance, and investor access. Compared with issuance platforms mainly serving community tokens, it targets corporate financing and the on-chain circulation of equity, and is still building its compliance framework, with equity issuance not yet open.
InkBrokers: Combining NFT accounts with tokenized asset trading
InkBrokers combines tokenized asset trading with an NFT account system, providing users with a trading gateway and organizing related rights for NFT holders through token-bound accounts. NFTs here are not only collectibles but also tools carrying the account and trading fee distribution mechanism. There are 4,444 InkBrokers NFTs in total, with a current floor price of approximately $15.
SuperSwap Ink: A multi-chain trading aggregator gateway for tokenized assets
SuperSwap started as a DEX aggregator on Ink and gradually expanded into a multi-chain trading gateway for tokenized assets. Its product positioning is to integrate different issuers, networks, and liquidity sources into the same interface, making it convenient for users to discover and swap tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, and crypto assets. Its supported assets include xStocks, Ondo, Paxos, and others, covering networks such as Ink, Ethereum, and Base.
In terms of usage scale, according to DefiLlama page data, SuperSwap's cumulative DEX aggregator trading volume is approximately $35.12 million, with approximately $273,900 over the past 30 days, while cross-chain aggregator trading volume during the same period was approximately $123,800. Its fees over the past 30 days were approximately $785, of which Ink contributed approximately $534, or about 68%, remaining its main business network.
NFT
Templars of the Storm: An NFT series around the Nado ecosystem
Templars of the Storm is Nado's official NFT series, deployed on Ink, with a total supply of 1,200. Themed around knights in a stormy world, it combines collectibles with Nado's community identity and ecosystem rights. Compared with independent avatar projects, it is more closely tied to on-chain trading applications, and the series introduction also links the expansion of holder utility with Nado's development.
A previous page snapshot on OpenSea shows that the series' cumulative trading volume is approximately $2.4 million, with approximately 819 unique holders.
Rekt Ink: An NFT project combining animated characters with ecosystem tools
Rekt Ink consists of 4,444 animated NFTs. The project plans to further develop NFT tools and DeFi products and has proposed the future issuance of a REKT token. An OpenSea page snapshot shows that the series' cumulative trading volume is approximately $171,000, with approximately 1,015 holders; as shown in the screenshot as of September 22, its floor price is approximately $54.48.
