Solana lending protocol Kamino has appointed Michael Weisz, co-founder of Yieldstreet, as its new chief executive to lead the company's expansion into tokenized assets. According to reports from CoinDesk, Weisz co-founded alternative investment platform Yieldstreet, now Willow Wealth, which deployed more than $6 billion alongside major financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Carlyle, KKR and Ares. The appointment represents a strategic move to establish Kamino closer to Wall Street firms and institutional capital. As reported by Globe Newswire, Weisz opened private markets to more than 500,000 individual investors as the co-founder of Yieldstreet, building it into the largest direct-to-consumer alternative investment platform in the United States. His institutional network and distribution playbook now bring that expertise to Kamino as the platform of on-chain finance expands into the U.S. market.
As reported by Globe Newswire, Kamino is establishing a New York headquarters and building an institutional team spanning finance, product, legal, compliance, and business development. The company is evaluating approximately 20,000 square feet of office space in the city to support its expansion. Weisz stated that being in New York puts Kamino at the intersection of asset managers, financial platforms, regulated service providers, capital providers, and talent that will shape this market. The company plans to hire a chief financial officer and head of legal to support its expansion. According to CoinDesk, Weisz stated that being in New York puts Kamino at the intersection of asset managers, distribution platforms and institutional capital that will define the next phase of on-chain finance. The appointment brings a traditional-finance executive into one of Solana's largest lending protocols, with Weisz having nearly a decade of experience building Yieldstreet into a major alternative investment platform.
According to Globe Newswire, Kamino is extending its crypto asset lending model to tokenized real-world assets, providing markets where investors can finance or use those assets as collateral after they move onchain. The company's PRIME market, developed with Figure Technologies and Hastra, uses Figure's blockchain-based home equity loans as collateral. Kamino has processed more than $650 billion in cumulative transaction volume over four years, while deposits in its PRIME lending market topped $600 million in approximately three months after launch. As reported by Globe Newswire, Kamino's PRIME market grew to over $600 million in deposits within 107 days of launch, one of the fastest-growing real-world asset markets on-chain. Tokenized equities from Nasdaq-listed companies including Forward Industries and Galaxy are also listed as collateral on Kamino, reflecting the platform's position as the emerging standard for institutional liquidity on-chain. Forward Industries confirmed in December 2025 that eligible non-U.S. holders of tokenized FWDI shares could post the stock as collateral on Kamino and borrow stablecoins while retaining exposure to their shares, using Superstate's Opening Bell system.
As reported by Globe Newswire, tokenization has brought a growing range of financial assets onto public blockchains, with tokenized real-world assets having grown roughly fourfold since early 2025. Industry projections put the market in the trillions of dollars by 2030. The expansion comes as tokenization moves beyond simply putting assets on blockchains, with lending and collateral markets developing around those assets. This creates new opportunities for DeFi platforms such as Kamino to work with traditional financial firms, moving beyond traditional crypto lending into institutional-grade tokenized asset services. The GENIUS Act became law in July 2025, while the Senate Banking Committee continues to advance efforts to establish a federal market structure for digital assets through the CLARITY Act. However, recent developments show mixed progress, as the U.S. Senate voted 49-50 on September 15 against invoking cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the CLARITY Act, requiring three-fifths support. These developments give financial institutions a firmer basis for evaluating tokenized assets and on-chain credit.
According to DefiLlama, Kamino currently holds approximately $1.43 billion in total value locked and $1.02 billion in active loans, all on the Solana network. The data provider lists cumulative protocol fees at roughly $249 million and cumulative revenue near $50.3 million. Kamino separately reports having processed more than $650 billion in cumulative transaction volume over four years and originated more than $20 billion in loans. The platform claims it has recorded no user bad debt or security incident while undergoing more than 30 independent audits and four formal verifications. KMNO showed little price reaction following the leadership announcement, with the token close to $0.025 on September 16, placing its market capitalization at approximately $138 million. The measured category covered equity-linked tokens deposited across decentralized exchanges, lending markets and related applications, with Kamino Lend holding approximately $41.7 million of tokenized-stock DeFi TVL, ranking second behind Uniswap V4's $59.1 million based on Token Terminal data.
