Borrowing Towards Your Tesla Inventory to Purchase a Automobile Is the Way forward for DeFi: Robert Leshner – Decrypt

It’s going to take some automobiles and homes to get customers actually eager on tokenization, Superstate founder and CEO Robert Leshner informed Decrypt.

Leshner famous that tokenizing these massive bodily property would widen consciousness, though making use of the method to shares would supercharge adoption.

“While you begin to say, such as you personal the inventory, you possibly can self-custody the inventory, you possibly can carry it to a DeFi protocol and you’ll borrow towards it. And you’ll take that cash and purchase a automobile or purchase a home and go away the system completely with it—I believe there’s going to be a whole lot of actually comfortable buyers,” he stated.

Tokenization refers to taking real-world property, like U.S. treasuries, shares, or gold, and turning them right into a digital token that’s on the blockchain. The asset itself doesn’t change, however turning it right into a token helps it transfer quicker and makes it programmable by the use of sensible contracts.

Profitable tokenized Treasuries embody BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, which has amassed $2.3 billion; Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund, which manages $846 million; and Ondo’s OUSG and USDY merchandise, which handle a mixed $1.4 billion.

Leshner first  splashed into the crypto trade in 2017 when he based Compound Labs, one of many earliest Ethereum DeFi lending protocols. He’s since turn into CEO and co-founder of Superstate, a agency targeted on constructing the infrastructure that strikes extra conventional monetary property on chain by way of tokenization.

For instance, the corporate just lately helped tokenize the shares of Nasdaq-traded Solana Firm and Galaxy Digital on its Opening Bell platform.

“Frankly, the power to make use of financing in new methods is extremely interesting,” he stated. “And never being informed the one factor you are able to do is purchase extra shares at your dealer supplier, proper?”

The opposite use case he highlighted as thrilling, however nonetheless “underexplored,” is portability. Though there are already techniques in place to assist an investor transfer shares between totally different corporations, they’re not nice, he stated.

“If I wish to simply transfer a share to you as a result of it’s your birthday and I wish to put a share in your account, it’s truly actually laborious,” Leshner stated. “There’s bizarre options which have been constructed through the years, like inventory reward playing cards, however inventory is just not actually moveable.”

CORRECTION (November 21, 2025, 5:47 p.m. ET): Removes iShares within the description of the BUIDL fund.