Lending on MLKY, step by step.
How a pool turns USDC into fixed-rate yield backed by graded cards. Plus an honest note on who can deposit today.
August 9, 2026 · 6 min read
The lender side of MLKY is the other end of the borrower’s deal. Borrowers pay a fixed rate to unlock USDC against their cards; that interest has to come from somewhere, and the somewhere is a pool. If you have used a vault-based lending protocol, the shape is familiar: deposit, shares, a net asset value that grows as loans repay. What is different is the collateral: every dollar out the door is secured by a specific graded card, priced individually before the loan exists.
A pool opens with its rules baked in
Every pool starts with parameters, and the parameters are the judgement: which collections it accepts, how much any single card can borrow, how much exposure it tolerates per asset type, what share of the pool can be lent out at once, and which term lengths and rates are on the menu. A pool is a lending policy made executable. The program enforces what its creator decided.
USDC goes in, shares come out
Deposits buy shares at the pool’s current price per share. Shares are the accounting: your slice of the pool’s net asset value (NAV), which is the idle USDC plus every outstanding loan at cost. Nothing about a deposit is term-locked. Only the loans the pool funds are.
The pool funds loans priced card by card
When a borrower draws, the principal comes from the pool, but only after the oracle has priced their exact card and signed off, and only inside the pool’s caps. This is the detail the whole model leans on. Floor prices cannot safely fund a pot that lends against cards no human has reviewed. Per-card signed quotes are what make a pre-funded pool possible at all.
Interest flows back as loans repay
Every repayment returns principal plus the full fixed interest, and the interest accrues to the pool’s NAV. Which is to say, to the share price. That is the only source of upside there is, and it is worth being clear that a default is not a second one: a defaulted card is sold, the pool is repaid principal and interest, and anything above that belongs to the borrower rather than to you. Lending here is capped at being paid what you are owed.
The downside enters the same ledger. If a defaulted card sells for less than its debt, the pool absorbs the shortfall as a lower NAV, and a card that finds no buyer at all is written off in full — there is no card coming to you instead. No separate fee, no hidden mechanism. Bad outcomes show up in the share price, exactly where you would look for them.
Withdraw at the current share price
Withdrawals burn shares at the prevailing price per share. Pools keep a buffer of idle USDC by refusing new loans above a utilization cap, but there is no liquidity guarantee inside a loan’s term. Principal that is out with a borrower stays out until they repay or default. Displayed APRs are forward-looking estimates, not promises.
See it working, not written down.
