Getting started
Introduction
Tenor runs a sealed-bid auction every week that sets one fixed rate for four-week USDC loans on Solana.
Tenor is a lending market with a single price-setting rule. Each week, lenders and borrowers submit sealed orders, the program lines them up by rate, and every order that matches gets the same clearing rate for the next four weeks.
- Lenders lock USDC and name the lowest rate they accept. Filled lenders receive notes, SPL tokens that redeem after the loans mature.
- Borrowers lock SOL or jitoSOL and name the highest rate they will pay. Filled borrowers receive USDC at the clearing rate, fixed for the whole term.
Why an auction#
Pool lending prices money block by block: the rate follows utilization, so the cost of a four-week loan is only known after the four weeks. A market maker funding inventory, a treasury planning a budget or a trader pricing a basis position needs that number up front.
Tenor collects a week of supply and demand and settles it at one moment:
- Sealed. Nobody sees another order's rate before committing, so there is no reacting to the last order in.
- Uniform. Everyone filled pays or earns the clearing rate. A borrower willing to pay 7.00% in an auction that clears at 6.25% pays 6.25%, so stating your true limit costs nothing.
- Fixed. The rate and the debt are set when the auction clears and do not move for the term.
What runs where#
| Part | Role |
|---|---|
| Tenor program | Holds every commitment, histogram, loan, collateral vault and note pool on Solana. All custody and arithmetic happen here. |
| Tenor app | Reads the index, builds instructions and asks your wallet to sign them. It never holds keys or funds. |
| Index and keeper | Reads every Tenor account once it is finalized and serves them over HTTP. The keeper sends the steps anyone may send: open, clear, refund, expire, finalize and sweep forfeited bonds to stakers. |
Everything the keeper does is permissionless. If it stops, any wallet can send the same instructions from the app or the CLI.
The first series#
| Term | Value |
|---|---|
| Lent asset | USDC |
| Loan term | 4 weeks |
| Auctions | One every 7 days |
| Collateral | SOL (wrapped) and jitoSOL |
| Rates | 0.00% to 15.75% in 0.25% steps |
| Collateral to open / to keep | 250% / 200% |
Every value is fixed when the series is created and cannot be changed. The full list is on Parameters.