Kamino appoints Michael Weisz as CEO to drive U.S. institutional expansion

Kamino, one of Solana’s largest lending protocols, announced that Michael Weisz – co‑founder of Yieldstreet (now Willow Wealth) – will serve as chief executive overseeing its U.S. institutional expansion.

New York headquarters and team build‑out

The protocol plans to establish a New York office to house finance, product, legal, compliance and business‑development functions. It is evaluating roughly 20,000 sq ft of office space and intends to hire a chief financial officer and a head of legal.

Institutional focus and tokenized‑asset lending

Kamino’s U.S. strategy targets asset managers, financial platforms and regulated service providers. The firm will work with institutional investors to use tokenized securities – such as Forward Industries’ FWDI shares and Galaxy’s GLXY shares – as collateral for stablecoin loans.

Growth of the PRIME market

Through a partnership with Figure Technologies and Hastra, Kamino’s PRIME market has attracted over $600 million in deposits within 107 days of launch, using Figure‑linked home‑equity loan collateral.

Scale of the protocol

• Total value locked (TVL) on Solana: ~ $1.43 billion (DefiLlama)
• Active loans: ~ $1.02 billion
• Cumulative protocol fees: ~ $249 million
• Cumulative revenue: ~ $50.3 million
• Processed transaction volume: > $650 billion over four years
• Originated loans: > $20 billion

Regulatory backdrop

The expansion is framed against ongoing U.S. crypto‑policy discussions, including the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, which recently failed to advance in the Senate.

Token price reaction

Kamino’s governance token (KMNO) showed little movement after the announcement, trading around $0.025 and giving the protocol a market capitalization of roughly $138 million.