Key Summary
Katana Network is a DeFi-focused Layer-2 blockchain that aims to integrate decentralized liquidity and provide sustainable returns.
The native token KAT is used for governance voting, fee sharing and liquidity incentives. The total amount is 10 billion and the lock-up period is 9 months.
Core on-chain applications include Sushi for spot trading, Morpho for lending agreement, and Vertex for perpetual contracts, all of which are supported by on-chain proprietary liquidity.
Users can obtain KAT through Polygon POL airdrops, early Krates deposits, or running vaults; but be aware of the risks brought by contract complexity and unlocking fluctuations.
Katana Network (KAT) is a Layer-2 blockchain designed for DeFi, jointly created by Polygon Labs and GSR, with the goal of solving the liquidity fragmentation problem on Ethereum. Imagine: an AMM-integrated Sushi, a unified lending protocol Morpho, and a perpetual contract-focused Vertex, all sharing the same liquidity pool. This means lower slippage and a more stable source of income, including sorter fees, VaultBridge strategies, and revenue from the core protocol.
KAT is Katana’s native token, driving platform governance, fee distribution, and incentives. Want to understand what Katana Network is, what the KAT token is used for, and how to participate? Read on!
Table of contents:
Katana Network Project Introduction
KAT token economic model, distribution and destruction mechanism
Katana Network core applications and ecological projects
How to participate in the Katana ecosystem and obtain KAT
Katana Network Competition Landscape Analysis
KAT Token Risks and Precautions
Katana Network (KAT) Project Overview
Katana Network is a Layer-2 network focused on DeFi, jointly created by Polygon Labs and GSR. Its core concept is: instead of letting liquidity be scattered among dozens of protocols, it will be concentrated in three key modules:
Sushi v3 for spot trading
Morpho provides lending functionality
Vertex focuses on perpetual contract trading
This “liquidity centralized” architecture brings a deeper pool of funds, lower slippage and a more stable trading experience.
Image Credit: Katana Network dApp Interface
Core design concept:
Unified liquidity: one AMM (Sushi v3), one lending protocol (Morpho), and one perpetual contract DEX (Vertex) to avoid liquidity fragmentation.
On-chain proprietary liquidity (CoL): Sorter fees and core application revenue are deposited into an on-chain fund pool, maintaining sufficient liquidity even in market fluctuations.
Embedded Income (VaultBridge): Before the bridged assets enter Katana, they can first earn income in the Yearn or Morpho vaults on Ethereum, realizing “interest on deposit”.
In terms of underlying architecture, Katana uses Polygons AggLayer to achieve seamless cross-chain bridging, and accelerates transaction finality and asset withdrawal speed through Optimism-based Rollup combined with Succinct Labs zero-knowledge proof technology. Each handling fee and part of the core protocol income will be injected into the on-chain fund pool to provide volatility protection for the market. At the same time, VaultBridge allows bridged assets to start working before entering Katana, helping you make money as soon as it goes online.
Image Credit: Katana Network Blog
Katana has launched its private mainnet in May 2025 and is scheduled to be fully open at the end of June. The native token KATANA has been distributed to POL stakers and early liquidity providers, mainly used for governance voting, fee sharing and ecological incentives. Katana uses ETH as Gas, and its governance mechanism is more aligned with long-term interests, aiming to serve DeFi traders, liquidity providers and dApp developers who want to obtain sustainable returns.
Image Credit: Katana Network Blog
Katana (KAT) token economic model, distribution and destruction mechanism
Total amount and use
The total issuance of KATANA (token abbreviation: KAT) is 10 billion, which is mainly used for governance voting, handling fee dividends and ecological incentives.
Distribution
15% airdropped to POL stakers: Approximately 1.5 billion KAT are distributed to users who stake POL on Ethereum.
Krates Reward Program: Users who participate in providing liquidity before launch can obtain KAT, cooperative project tokens and NFTs through the Krates Blind Box.
Ongoing Incentive Program: 10 million KAT are reserved in the Turtle Club Treasury to provide a daily fixed income for new funds.
Ecological Reserve and Foundation: The remaining tokens mainly support developer incentives, community subsidies and market liquidity maintenance.
Lock-up period description
All KAT distributed at the time of the initial launch will be locked for 9 months to avoid initial selling pressure and encourage users to participate in the ecosystem for a long time. It is expected to be unlocked as early as February 2026. If the community reaches a consensus in advance, it may be unlocked earlier.
Token usage and governance mechanism
vKAT governance voting: Locking KAT can be exchanged for vKAT, which can be used to participate in governance proposals and voting based on the ve(3, 3) model.
Transaction fee dividends: Users who pledge vKAT can receive a share of platform transaction fees, lending spreads, and treasury income.
Incentive flow decisions: Community governance can decide how KAT rewards are distributed to protocols such as Sushi, Morpho, and Vertex.
Destruction Mechanism Description
Katana does not have a native destruction mechanism. The project team emphasized that this is not a project that relies on a deflationary narrative to maintain its value, but rather a so-called real yield model that reinvests protocol revenue into liquidity or gives back to staking users.
A complete analysis of Katana Networks core applications and ecological dApps
Three core applications
Katana is designed to concentrate liquidity into three flagship applications, rather than having protocols compete with each other and dilute the funding pool.
Sushi v3 (Spot AMM)
The only automatic market maker (AMM) on Katana, trading pairs such as KATANA/USDT, ETH, USDC, WBTC, etc. are all gathered here.
The liquidity is deep, the slippage is small, the users buy at a better price, and the liquidity providers can earn currency exchange fees more stably.
Morpho (Lending Protocol)
Through a combination of peer-to-peer matching and shared funding pools, we provide optimized lending rates.
A single market brings together borrowers and lenders, resulting in more stable interest rates and greater market depth.
Vertex (Perpetual Contract DEX)
Provide high-leverage perpetual contract trading and support a complete margin management and risk control system.
With the same set of on-chain proprietary liquidity support, even high-leverage transactions can enjoy deep liquidity.
Image Credit: Katana Network Blog
Native Asset Protocol
In addition to the core dApp, Katana also natively supports multiple asset types:
AUSD (Agora USD): A stablecoin backed by real assets, with stability fees returned to users.
LBTC (Lombard Bitcoin): A BTC wrapped asset that earns interest, allowing your Bitcoin to “work and earn money”.
Liquid staking assets: such as Ether.fi’s stETH and Jito’s stSOL, can bring the staking income of Ethereum and Solana into the Katana network to achieve cross-chain income integration.
Revenue Infrastructure
VaultBridge Bridging Strategy: Before users’ cross-chain assets arrive at Katana, they can be imported into Ethereum’s Yearn or Morpho vault, and begin to generate income as soon as the funds are deposited.
On-chain liquidity (CoL): Protocol fees and treasury income are automatically injected into the core liquidity pool to maintain market stability and mitigate volatility.
Ecosystem Integration Project
Katana is integrating with multiple top projects to build a robust DeFi infrastructure:
Turtle Club: Provides a transparent treasury strategy and continues to reward users with KATANA.
Chainlink and The Graph: provide price oracle and data indexing support.
Den: used for the governance interface front end; Blockworks provides media exposure and continues to expand Katana’s market awareness.
Katana is building an interconnected and focused DeFi ecosystem where all applications and assets flow into the same “liquidity flywheel”, making the user experience more efficient, predictable, and profitable.
Image Credit: Katana Network
How to participate in the Katana ecosystem and obtain KAT tokens
There are several ways to get KAT tokens. Whether you are an early supporter or a latecomer, there is a suitable path for you:
1. POL airdrop collection
By staking your POL on Ethereum before the snapshot date, you will automatically receive 15% of the total KAT supply in proportion.
2. Pre-launch Krates event (ended)
Early users deposit ETH, USDC, USDT or WBTC into Katana’s Krates contract to receive a “blind box” reward.
Each Krate contains KAT and cooperative project tokens, which will be unlocked when the mainnet is launched, and the token lock-up period is 9 months.
3. Turtle Club Vault
Before the mainnet goes online, users can still deposit the above assets into the Katana vault provided by Turtle Club.
The yield rate of the treasury is open and transparent, and KAT rewards can be received every day after the mainnet is launched.
4. Free trading after launch
After KAT is unlocked and transferable, KAT/USDT can be traded on Sushi, and it can also be bought and sold on centralized exchanges (such as XT.com ).
– You can also add liquidity to KAT and earn exchange fees and incentive rewards.
5. Stake to participate in governance
– Lock transferable KAT to mint vKAT.
vKAT can be used to participate in community governance proposal voting and enjoy dividends from platform transaction fees.
Whether you are a DeFi player or an ecosystem builder, KAT is an important pass for you to participate in the Katana network.
Katana Network’s competitive landscape analysis
In the context of increasingly fierce competition in the DeFi and Layer-2 tracks, Katana Network has taken a different approach, focusing on unified liquidity and real returns, which is different from the incentive logic and liquidity architecture of current mainstream projects. The following is a comparison of the main competing projects:
General Layer-2 Project:
Mainstream models: such as Arbitrum , Optimism , zkSync and Base, usually integrate multiple AMMs and lending protocols, liquidity is divided among multiple platforms and tokens, and capital efficiency is low.
Katanas advantages: Katana only provides one AMM (Sushi), one lending protocol (Morpho) and one perpetual contract platform (Vertex), which concentrates liquidity and forms a deeper capital pool. At the same time, through the on-chain proprietary liquidity (CoL) and VaultBridge cross-chain profit mechanism, it provides users with a more sustainable real profit experience.
Public chains for DeFi:
Canto: Incentives are issued based on an inflation model, only AMM and lending are integrated, and there is a lack of a long-term profit model.
Sei : Focuses on high-performance order book DEX, but has no native profit distribution.
Katana: Integrates spot, lending, perpetual contracts and cross-chain returns, packaging all core DeFi needs in one stop.
Comparison of protocol proprietary liquidity models:
OlympusDAO: Focuses on OHM self-sustaining liquidity, but is limited to a single protocol.
Katana: Expanding “protocol-operated liquidity” to “chain-level-operated liquidity” continues to inject depth into core applications across the entire network.
Cross-chain liquidity aggregation:
LayerZero and Thorchain : Provide cross-chain asset exchange, but liquidity is still scattered in the original chain.
Katana: Bridge cross-chain assets into the ecosystem through VaultBridge to achieve liquidity sedimentation and efficient utilization.
Polygon Ecosystem Synergy Effect:
As a strategic support project of Polygon Labs, Katana airdrops 15% of tokens to POL stakers. In addition, it also makes up for the functional shortcomings of other Rollup projects such as Polygon zkEVM, becoming the DeFi hub in the Polygon ecosystem.
Katana (KAT) Token Risks and Precautions
When participating in the Katana Network and its tokens, users should be aware of the following key risks:
1. Security Complexity
Katana integrates multiple protocols (VaultBridge, Sushi, Morpho, Vertex), and although it has passed the audit, the overall attack surface is large.
Part of the systems revenue comes from off-chain vaults such as Yearn and Morpho. If vulnerabilities occur in external protocols, it may affect asset security.
2. Insufficient decentralization
Currently, the sorting service is provided by Conduit, and the cross-chain bridge relies on Polygons AggLayer, which has certain risks of centralization and single point failure.
The project has planned to be fully decentralized in the future, but it has not yet been realized.
3. Liquidity and withdrawal issues
User assets may earn interest off-chain. If there are large-scale withdrawals, it may put pressure on the reserve pool and on-chain proprietary liquidity (CoL).
In extreme market conditions, withdrawals may be delayed.
4. Economic and market risks
Income depends on DeFi activities and external strategy performance. If the market is sluggish, returns will be compressed.
The KAT tokens from airdrops and treasury rewards will be locked for 9 months (expected to be unlocked in February 2026), which may cause price fluctuations when unlocked.
5. Compliance uncertainty
– Katana manages liquidity and returns at the chain level, which may be regarded as securities or banking-type businesses in some regions and may face regulatory pressure.
Katana (KAT) Development Prospects
Positive signal
Polygon Labs and GSR Support: Bringing funding, resources, and early liquidity to the project.
POL airdrop builds a base of users: a natural community foundation helps the network launch quickly.
Real return mechanism: Combining VaultBridge and on-chain proprietary liquidity (CoL), if it can continue to provide competitive annualized returns, it will become Katana’s core advantage.
Image Credit: Katana Network
Future Challenges
Unlocking period fluctuations: After the unlocking in early 2026, a large amount of KAT in circulation may cause price fluctuations.
Security and execution: The system integration is complex and needs to ensure security and stability while advancing development nodes according to the roadmap.
Competitive pressure: Other Layer-2 projects may copy its incentive mechanism, and continued innovation is critical.
Summarize
The markets overall attitude towards Katana is cautiously optimistic. If it can continue to stabilize returns, maintain liquidity depth, and strengthen governance mechanisms, it is expected to attract TVL from the Ethereum mainnet, neutral Rollup, and other DeFi public chains. The ultimate success or failure of the project depends on execution capabilities, security guarantees, and community governance participation.
FAQs about Katana (KAT)
Q1: What is Katana Network (KATANA)?
Katana Network is a Layer-2 blockchain focused on DeFi, jointly created by Polygon Labs and GSR. It integrates Sushis spot trading, Morphos lending function, and Vertexs perpetual contracts, while providing on-chain proprietary liquidity and built-in income strategies, aiming to build deeper market liquidity and a more stable return mechanism.
Q2: What is KATANA token? What is it used for?
KATANA (KAT for short) is the native token of the platform, with a fixed total of 10 billion. Users can lock KAT to generate vKAT, which is used to participate in community governance voting, obtain protocol fee sharing, and decide the incentive direction of Sushi, Morpho and Vertex. All tokens are distributed through airdrops or early liquidity incentives, with no private placement rounds or institutional allocations.
Q3: How can I check the real-time price of KATANA?
After KAT is available for trading, you can view the real-time KATANA/USDT market on Katana’s Sushi DEX or centralized exchanges such as XT.com . Data platforms such as CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap will also display price charts and historical trends simultaneously.
Q4: How to trade KATANA/USDT on Katana? Go to the official website app.katana.network , connect your wallet (supports MetaMask, WalletConnect), import assets through the AggLayer cross-chain bridge, and then you can exchange KAT and USDT on Sushi.
Q 5: Where can I follow the official updates of Katana?
You can follow the official account @katana on X (formerly Twitter), read the project blog , or join the Discord community through the link on katana.network to get the first-hand information and updates.
