Image Credit: Kamino
Key Takeaways
- Kamino, a $1.4 billion Solana lending protocol, named Yieldstreet co-founder Michael Weisz as CEO alongside a new New York headquarters.
- The expansion targets tokenization, with Kamino’s PRIME market already drawing over $600 million in deposits using Figure Technologies’ home equity loans as collateral.
- Kamino has processed more than $650 billion in cumulative transaction volume, and Weisz says the focus now is connecting tokenized assets to institutional distribution channels.
Kamino, a Solana-based lending protocol with $1.4 billion in assets, named Yieldstreet co-founder Michael Weisz as chief executive on Tuesday. The appointment accompanies a new New York headquarters as the protocol looks to expand its ties to Wall Street and broaden its lending business into tokenized real-world assets.
New Leadership, New Headquarters
Kamino said it is evaluating roughly 20,000 square feet of office space in New York and plans to hire a chief financial officer and a head of legal as part of the buildout. Weisz will lead the expansion from that office.
Weisz co-founded alternative investment platform Yieldstreet, now operating as Willow Wealth, which deployed more than $6 billion in capital alongside firms including Goldman Sachs, Carlyle, KKR and Ares.
“Being in New York puts Kamino at the intersection of the asset managers, distribution platforms and institutional capital that will define the next phase of on-chain finance.”
Tokenization Push Extends Kamino’s Lending Model
Kamino’s platform allows users to lend crypto assets or borrow against them, a model the company is extending to tokenized real-world assets.
Tokenization, the process of representing traditional assets such as stocks, bonds and funds on blockchain networks, has become a significant focus for Wall Street firms exploring faster settlement and round-the-clock markets. Citi has projected the tokenized securities market could grow to $5.5 trillion by 2030.
Kamino’s PRIME lending market, developed with Figure Technologies and Hastra, uses Figure’s blockchain-based home equity loans as collateral. The company said deposits in that market surpassed $600 million within roughly three months of launch.
Nasdaq-listed Solana treasury firm Forward Industries and digital asset manager Galaxy also use Kamino’s infrastructure for tokenized equity and U.S. Treasury positions, according to the company.
Building Toward Institutional Distribution
Weisz said the harder part of the tokenization opportunity lies not in creating tokenized assets themselves but in connecting them to existing distribution channels.
“The hardest part is rarely creating the asset. It is building the infrastructure that meets distribution and asset managers where they are.”
Kamino said it has processed more than $650 billion in cumulative transaction volume over four years of operation. The New York expansion is intended to position the company closer to the asset managers and financial institutions it is seeking to bring onto its platform as lending and collateral markets develop around tokenized assets.
The move reflects a broader pattern among DeFi platforms as tokenization shifts from simply moving assets onto blockchains toward building the lending and collateral infrastructure needed to support institutional use of those assets.
