Solend (SLND)

Data Delay

Overview

Solend is a lending and borrowing protocol built on the Solana blockchain. It lets people supply crypto assets to shared pools and borrow from those pools by depositing collateral. Smart contracts—the programs that run on a blockchain—handle the loans, interest, and account balances. This makes Solend part of decentralized finance, or DeFi: financial services that people can use through a crypto wallet. (docs.save.finance)

Solend’s original token is SLND. It was created for community governance and incentives. The project adopted the name Save in 2024 and later introduced a token called SAVE. The project’s conversion page says that holders can convert SLND to SAVE at a one-to-one rate; conversions opened on December 12, 2024. The older name and token still matter when reading the project’s history or looking at an existing wallet balance. (medium.com)

History & Team

From a hackathon to a lending protocol

Solend began in 2021. Its founder, known publicly as Rooter, said he started work on the project in May of that year. Rooter had previously worked with Ethereum smart contracts and wanted to make lending services easier to use on Solana. He described conversations with the founders of the Solana projects Raydium and Orca as an early influence. (defiprime.com)

The team entered the Solana Season Hackathon and won first place in its DeFi track in June 2021. Solend then developed into a live lending service. Rooter has identified Polychain, Dragonfly, Race Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, and Alameda Research among its early backers. These names describe the project’s early funding history, rather than who operates each lending pool. (solana.com)

As the protocol grew, the team added more types of pools and tools for developers. In 2023, it introduced Solend Lite, an open-source client that could interact with the lending contracts without relying on the project’s usual backend. The move toward the Save name followed in 2024, with the SLND-to-SAVE token conversion opening later that year. (medium.com)

Technology & How It Works

Pools, collateral, and interest

Solend brings suppliers and borrowers together through liquidity pools. A supplier deposits an asset, such as SOL or USDC, into a pool. A borrower can then take some of that asset out as a loan after depositing eligible collateral. The borrower’s debt grows with interest over time, and suppliers receive interest from borrowing activity. A user does not need to find an individual person willing to make the loan. (docs.save.finance)

Interest rates respond to utilization: the share of a pool’s supplied assets that has been borrowed. When more of a pool is in use, its borrowing rate can rise. Each asset also has settings that help determine how much can be borrowed against it. These include a loan-to-value ratio, a borrowing limit, and a liquidation threshold. If debt grows too large compared with the value of the collateral, the protocol’s liquidation process can sell some collateral to repay the loan. (docs.save.finance)

Solend uses outside price feeds, called oracles, to value assets and calculate account health. Its documentation names Pyth and Switchboard as oracle providers. Within a pool, the software tracks each asset in a reserve and each user’s supply and borrowing position in an account known as an obligation. These records let the protocol calculate balances without a bank keeping a private ledger. (docs.save.finance)

Different kinds of pools

The protocol’s design includes a main pool, isolated pools, and permissionless pools. The main pool brings together assets that meet its listing standards. Isolated pools give other assets their own lending markets, so their settings and activity are kept separate from the main pool. Permissionless pools extend that model by letting others create markets for supported Solana tokens. Pool creators can set up a market for a community or project with particular lending needs. (docs.save.finance)

Solend also has cTokens, which act as receipts for certain deposits. A cToken represents a share of an underlying pool; as that pool earns interest, the amount of the original asset represented by the receipt can increase. Because cTokens are Solana tokens, developers can use them in other applications that support them. (docs.save.finance)

Tokenomics & Utility

The original SLND allocation

Solend’s published plan set out 100 million SLND tokens. It allocated 60% to the community: 30% for liquidity-mining incentives and 30% for a treasury governed by the Solend DAO. The plan assigned 25% to the core team and 15% to venture investors and individual backers. An initial token offering allocation of 5% came from the treasury portion, rather than being added on top of the total. (docs.save.finance)

The plan also described staged unlocks for the team and seed-round participants. This meant those allocations were scheduled to become available over time, while incentives could be distributed to people using selected lending markets. The published distribution explains how the original SLND token was organized. The project’s later move to SAVE has its own token contract and a one-to-one conversion process for SLND holders. (docs.save.finance)

SLND’s central role was governance. Its holders were given a way to take part in decisions about the protocol and its treasury. The token was also used in lending incentives and reward programs. Supplying or borrowing, however, starts with the asset being supplied or used as collateral; SLND serves a different purpose from the assets moving through the pools. (docs.save.finance)

Ecosystem & Use Cases

Solend’s simplest use is supplying an asset to earn interest paid in that asset. A second use is borrowing while keeping a deposit in place as collateral. For example, a user could supply SOL and borrow USDC, gaining access to a stablecoin balance while maintaining a SOL-backed position. Borrowing can also be part of more complex trading strategies. (docs.save.finance)

Different pools make the lending system useful to more than one group. A broad pool can serve common assets, while an isolated pool can give a particular token its own borrowing market. The permissionless-pool model lets outside builders propose and create markets, extending lending to assets that may not belong in the main pool. (docs.save.finance)

The wider Save project builds on this lending foundation. Its interface includes reward programs tied to selected deposits, including saveSOL-related rewards. The team has also provided open-source client software and a software development kit, or SDK, for people building applications that interact with its contracts. These tools give other developers ways to connect Solana applications to lending positions. (save.finance)

Advantages & Challenges

Solend’s pool model makes borrowing available without matching each borrower to a single lender. Solana-based transactions, separate pool designs, and developer tools give the protocol several ways to serve users and builders. Published reserve settings also make its lending rules—such as collateral limits and rate formulas—part of the system’s visible design. (docs.save.finance)

The same design has trade-offs. Borrowing rates change as pool utilization changes, so a loan’s interest cost can change. Collateral values depend on oracle prices, and a position that reaches its liquidation threshold can have collateral sold. Isolated markets separate assets, but each market still needs suitable prices, settings, and available supply to work as intended. These are ongoing parts of operating a pool-based lending system. (docs.save.finance)

Where to Buy & Wallets

SLND is available on the Solana decentralized exchanges Orca and Raydium. SAVE, the newer token, is listed on Raydium. They use different token contracts, so the token name and contract address identify which one a wallet or exchange displays. The project’s conversion page handles SLND-to-SAVE conversion at the stated one-to-one rate. (coingecko.com)

A Solana wallet can hold the tokens and connect to the lending interface. Solend’s getting-started guide names Phantom as one wallet option and explains that Solana transactions require some SOL to pay network fees. The project’s documentation also publishes the original SLND token address, which distinguishes it from SAVE’s newer address. (docs.save.finance)

Regulatory & Compliance

The legal treatment of a token and the legal treatment of a lending service depend on the activity and the jurisdiction. In the United States, securities-law analysis can depend on how a crypto asset or lending arrangement is structured and offered. In the European Union, the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, sets rules for covered crypto assets and service providers; EU authorities have separately examined how crypto lending, borrowing, and decentralized systems fit into the regulatory picture. These frameworks provide context for Solend and Save without giving either token a single worldwide legal classification. (sec.gov)

Solend’s lending model also matters under Islamic finance principles. Borrowers pay interest that funds returns to suppliers. Because Islamic finance prohibits receiving or paying riba, or interest on a loan, Solend’s interest-bearing lending activity does not align with that principle. The question concerns the protocol’s lending activity; using Solana as its underlying blockchain does not change how those loans work. (docs.save.finance)

Future Outlook

Save’s development has carried the original Solend lending model into a broader set of interfaces, pools, and incentives. Its future work can build on the features already established: lending markets for different assets, tools for outside developers, and governance around the protocol. How those features develop will depend on decisions made by the project and its community. (docs.save.finance)

For readers following the token, the key change is the move from the original SLND contract toward SAVE. The project continues to offer its one-to-one conversion page, making that transition an important part of understanding Solend’s history and the Save ecosystem that followed it. (save.finance)

Summary

Solend helped bring pool-based crypto lending to Solana. Its original SLND token supported governance and incentives, while its smart contracts let users supply assets, borrow against collateral, and interact with separate lending markets. The project now operates as Save, linking Solend’s early DeFi model to a newer name and token. (docs.save.finance)