Create a real InterestBearing Token

Question

From what I've understand of the Interest-Bearing extension from Token2022, it is actually a cosmetic feature, the balances seen on explorers, on wallets do not change. The amounts do not change, only the amount_UI.

I know real Interest Bearing protocols on Ethereum, like Titano for exemple (auto-rebase). A use case would be for exemple Interest-Bearing stablecoin (based on bonds).

Is there any way to do that ? The balances of a held token would change (without having to actually "mint" the tokens with a transaction) over time ?

Answer 1

The big difference between Ethereum and Solana is how account data is read. On Ethereum, you have view functions, so the amount can be calculated by the smart contract, whereas on Solana, programs and explorers just interpret the account bytes directly.

This means if you want to do it "for real", you need to have a way to update the account bytes every single time the account is used. In most situations, this isn't even possible, since only your token program can modify the bytes in the data.

Instead, you would probably need to get people to use some sort of view function on your account data, similar to Ethereum. At which point, it's a UI trick, just like the current interest-bearing extension.

So if you want the balance to change over time without minting new tokens, then you're asking for a cosmetic solution, similar to the interest-bearing extension.