For lenders

Supplying and earning on Tectonic

Supplying is the gentler half of a money market. You deposit an asset, it joins the pool, and borrowers pay you to use it. No leverage, no liquidation risk on the supply itself — but a few things are worth understanding before you treat it as a savings account.

What the supply APY actually is

The supply APY is your share of the interest borrowers pay, spread across everyone supplying that market. Because it is driven by utilisation, it moves constantly. A market that is 90% borrowed pays suppliers far more than one sitting at 15%. That also means the number you see today is not contractual — it is simply the rate right now.

Two more nuances: APY already assumes interest compounds, and the rate is quoted in the asset you supplied. Earning 4% on USDC means more USDC; earning 4% on CRO means more CRO, whose dollar value can swing independently.

tTokens: your receipt

When you supply, you receive tTokens (tUSDC, tCRO, and so on). Think of them as a claim cheque on the pool. They do not increase in count — instead, each tToken becomes redeemable for a growing amount of the underlying asset as interest accrues. To exit, you hand back the tTokens and receive your principal plus earnings. Because tTokens are real on-chain tokens, advanced users sometimes use them elsewhere, but for most people they are simply the thing that proves the deposit is theirs.

Supply rewards in TONIC

Beyond interest, Tectonic has historically distributed TONIC as an extra incentive to suppliers and borrowers through liquidity mining. When active, these rewards can meaningfully boost the headline yield — but they are emissions, paid in a volatile token, and their rate is set by tokenomics and governance rather than by market demand. Treat the base interest and the token rewards as two separate things when you judge whether a market is worth it.

Withdrawing

You can withdraw supplied assets at any time, provided two conditions hold: there is enough idle liquidity in the pool (if utilisation is near 100%, you may need to wait for borrowers to repay), and, if you have borrowed against that collateral, withdrawing would not push your position past its limit. For pure suppliers who never borrowed, withdrawal is usually immediate.

Risks a supplier still carries

• Smart-contract risk. A bug or exploit in the protocol can affect deposited funds. See security & audits.
• Asset risk. Supplying a volatile token means your dollar value rides that token; supplying a stablecoin means trusting its peg.
• Liquidity risk. In extreme demand, withdrawals can be delayed until borrowers repay.
• Reward risk. TONIC incentives can change or end; never supply purely for an emission you assume is permanent.