Key Highlights
- Michael Weisz, co-founder of Yieldstreet, has been named CEO of Kamino, a Solana lending platform managing $1.4 billion in assets
- The protocol is establishing a New York City headquarters and recruiting senior executives including a CFO and legal chief to attract institutional partners
- Kamino’s foray into tokenized real-world assets has seen its PRIME market accumulate over $600 million in deposits within three months of operation
- While Solana’s RWA ecosystem has grown past $4 billion, actual borrowing activity remains minimal, with Kamino’s total RWA debt under $3 million
- Solana deployed Transaction V1 to mainnet, expanding maximum transaction capacity threefold to accommodate sophisticated institutional operations
Kamino, a leading lending platform on the Solana blockchain, has announced the appointment of Michael Weisz as chief executive officer. This strategic hire signals the protocol’s ambition to forge stronger connections between decentralized finance and traditional financial institutions.
Weisz previously co-founded Yieldstreet, which has since rebranded as Willow Wealth. During his tenure, the platform facilitated over $6 billion in capital deployment, partnering with major financial players such as Goldman Sachs, Carlyle Group, KKR, and Ares Management. His background in institutional finance and alternative asset distribution positions him to navigate Kamino’s expansion into traditional markets.
With $1.4 billion in managed assets and over $650 billion in historical transaction throughput across four years of operations, Kamino enables participants to supply crypto assets for lending or utilize them as collateral for borrowing.
New York Office Signals Institutional Ambitions
Kamino is establishing its primary operations center in New York City, currently evaluating approximately 20,000 square feet of commercial space. The buildout includes plans to recruit a chief financial officer and general counsel as the platform develops its institutional capabilities.
“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,” Weisz said.
The expanded team will draw talent from finance, legal, product development, compliance, and business development sectors. This geographic positioning aims to facilitate direct engagement with the institutional investors and asset managers Kamino seeks to onboard.
The protocol is broadening its lending framework to encompass tokenized real-world assetsātraditional financial instruments including equities, fixed income, and funds represented on blockchain infrastructure. Citi analysts have forecast the tokenized securities sector could expand to $5.5 trillion within the next six years.
PRIME Product Gains Deposits While Borrowing Activity Remains Limited
Kamino’s PRIME offering, developed in collaboration with Figure Technologies and Hastra, utilizes Figure’s blockchain-native home equity loans as underlying collateral. The product attracted over $600 million in deposits approximately three months post-launch.
Figure Technologies has originated more than $19 billion in blockchain-based loans and commands an estimated 70% share of the RWA private credit sector. This collaboration provides Kamino direct exposure to verified borrower payment streams.
However, actual credit deployment on Kamino remains surprisingly low. Real-world assets constituted 17.2% of Kamino’s lending pool in August, representing approximately $426 million. Yet combined RWA and liquid staking token debt totaled less than $3 million.
PRIME experienced $13.6 million in net withdrawals during August, while a rival product named ONyc surpassed it as the leading RWA asset by total supply value.
The broader Solana RWA ecosystem reflects similar dynamics. The network hosts more than $4 billion in tokenized instruments distributed across over 350,000 addresses. Despite this scale, the median RWA transaction on Solana measured just $29, significantly below the $70 median observed on competing platforms.
Public company Forward Industries and digital asset firm Galaxy also leverage Kamino’s infrastructure for managing tokenized equity holdings and U.S. Treasury positions.
Coinciding with the leadership announcement, Solana deployed its Transaction V1 upgrade to the production network. This enhancement expands the maximum transaction size from 1,232 bytes to 4,096 bytes, enabling more sophisticated institutional workflows to execute within single transactions.
Galaxy Research observed that “capability now runs ahead of adoption” and suggested the latter half of 2026 will reveal whether utilization catches up to technical capacity.
Weisz faces the fundamental challenge of converting tokenized asset deposits into meaningful borrowing activity, which remains the protocol’s primary obstacle to achieving its institutional objectives.
Get 3 Free Stock Ebooks
Discover top-performing stocks in AI, Crypto, and Technology with expert analysis.
- Top 10 AI Stocks - Leading AI companies
- Top 10 Crypto Stocks - Blockchain leaders
- Top 10 Tech Stocks - Tech giants
