Kamino, the Solana-based lending protocol, has named Michael Weisz as its chief executive as the company lays out plans to expand into the United States and court institutional capital. The a
Kamino, the Solana-based lending protocol, has named Michael Weisz as its chief executive as the company lays out plans to expand into the United States and court institutional capital. The appointment and the expansion push were announced together, positioning Weisz at the top of a protocol that operates lending and collateralized borrowing infrastructure on Solana.
The move places a Wall Street operator at the helm of one of Solana's larger DeFi lenders. Weisz co-founded the private-markets investment platform Yieldstreet, which the reporting on his appointment identifies as now operating under the name Willow Wealth, according to CoinDesk. His arrival signals Kamino's intent to bridge on-chain credit markets with traditional institutional finance. For related coverage, see Clarity Act Vote: Inside the Last-Minute Political Breakdown.
Kamino's core business is lending and collateralized borrowing built directly on Solana, where users supply assets to earn yield and borrow against posted collateral. The protocol says it has processed more than $650 billion in cumulative transaction volume, a company-reported figure that CoinDesk places over roughly four years of activity; the number reflects lifetime throughput rather than current deposits or assets under management.
Weisz steps in as the protocol tightens its focus on tokenized real-world assets, including blockchain-based home equity loans. That direction dovetails with his background in private-market credit and helps explain why institutional lending sits at the center of Kamino's next chapter, a chapter tied directly to the U.S. expansion announced alongside his appointment.
Kamino's PRIME market, developed with Figure Technologies and Hastra, surpassed $600 million in deposits within 107 days of launch, according to company figures relayed by both CoinDesk and Pulse 2.0. The milestone underlines why real-world-asset lending has become the protocol's growth engine ahead of its move onshore.
PRIME deposit milestone
More than $600 million
Within 107 days of launch
Kamino says its PRIME market surpassed $600 million in deposits within 107 days of launch, as reported by CoinDesk and Pulse 2.0. Company-reported milestone; not independently verified or a current deposit balance.Pulse 2.0 also relays company claims that Kamino has originated more than $20 billion of loans without bad debt or security incidents across market cycles, and has undergone more than 30 independent audits. Those are figures the company has put forward that neither outlet independently verified, so they should be read as Kamino's own account rather than confirmed fact.
Alongside the leadership change, Kamino says it plans to expand into the United States with a physical footprint aimed at institutional partners. The protocol is evaluating roughly 20,000 square feet of New York office space and plans to hire a chief financial officer and a head of legal, per CoinDesk; these remain plans, not a signed lease or completed hires.
Weisz said a New York presence would put Kamino closer to asset managers, distribution platforms and institutional capital involved in on-chain finance, a paraphrase of his comments reported by CoinDesk. Pulse 2.0 reports the planned New York team would span finance, product, legal, compliance and business development.
The appointment and the expansion were announced as concurrent themes rather than a proven cause-and-effect; the available reporting does not state that Weisz was hired specifically to run the U.S. build-out. The parallel with wider industry moves is hard to miss, as firms race to bring tokenized assets onshore and traditional players like those behind Coinbase's expansion into tokenized stocks and payments chase the same institutional demand. Kamino itself has drawn growing on-chain interest, from a recent whale deposit of $2.76 million USDC into a Kamino vault to its inclusion on Coinbase's listing roadmap.
The available reporting does not specify a timetable for the U.S. launch or which products would be offered onshore. An office under evaluation and a hiring plan indicate intent, not an operational start date or a defined product menu.
Neither fetched article establishes a license, regulatory approval, investor-eligibility rules or a date when U.S. users would gain access to Kamino's products. A New York headquarters and compliance hiring should not be read as regulatory permission; that distinction remains the open question the coverage leaves unresolved. Those gaps reflect the information currently available, not a claim that Kamino has withheld disclosures elsewhere.
The regulatory backdrop only sharpens the point, with Washington still unsettled after the Senate rejected the Clarity Act, leaving the rules for on-chain credit in the U.S. an open field that Kamino's new leadership will have to navigate.
Additional source references: source document 1.
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