NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Kamino, the largest credit protocol on Solana and the largest credit platform for real-world assets on-chain, with more than $650 billion in cumulative transaction volume, today announced the appointment of Michael Weisz as Chief Executive Officer. Under Weisz’s leadership, Kamino will expand its capabilities in the United States, deepen its work with institutional asset managers and financial platforms, and build an institutional team in New York City.
Weisz opened private markets to more than 500,000 individual investors as the co-founder of Yieldstreet (now Willow Wealth Inc.), which he built into the largest direct-to-consumer alternative investment platform in the United States, deploying more than $6 billion alongside partners Goldman Sachs, Carlyle, KKR, Ares, Fortress, StepStone, and many others. He now brings that institutional network and distribution playbook to Kamino as the platform of on-chain finance expands into the U.S. market.
Kamino’s U.S. expansion comes as the policy environment for digital assets becomes more workable. The GENIUS Act became law in July 2025. The Senate Banking Committee continues to advance efforts to establish a federal market structure for digital assets through the CLARITY Act, after the White House agreed to new ethics provisions aimed at securing bipartisan support to establish a federal market structure for digital assets. The SEC rescinded SAB 121 through SAB 122, while the OCC and Federal Reserve clarified their supervisory treatment of banks’ digital-asset activities. These developments give financial institutions a firmer basis for evaluating tokenized assets and on-chain credit. Kamino is building its New York team to work directly with regulators, asset managers, financial platforms, regulated service providers, and capital providers as this market develops.
“Being in New York puts us at the intersection of the asset managers and institutions alongside which we want to build the next phase of Kamino. Today, tokenization has proven that assets can move on-chain, that is just the first step. Representing an asset on-chain creates new possibilities for distribution, collateral, and settlement,” said Weisz. “However, those benefits require the market infrastructure around the asset: trusted distribution, legal and compliance pathways, asset lifecycle operations, and credit and liquidity. Kamino is building these layers as one institutional system that asset managers, financial platforms, and regulated service providers can connect into. The vision is to broaden the access to investment opportunities, and enable investors to access liquidity against previously illiquid assets.”
Building From a Proven Solana Foundation
Weisz’s decision was in-part driven by Kamino’s scale and track record, including more than $650 billion in cumulative transaction volume and zero security incidents across 30+ independent audits. The company has spent more than four years building on-chain credit and liquidity infrastructure, becoming the largest platform of its kind for real-world assets on-chain. Since launch, Kamino has maintained a clean security record, with zero security incidents as well as $0 of bad debt to users across several market cycles.
That technological foundation is already leading the expansion into real-world assets. Kamino’s PRIME market, developed with Figure Technologies and Hastra, uses Figure’s on-chain home equity lines of credit as underlying collateral and 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 Kamino’s position as the emerging standard for institutional liquidity on-chain. Weisz’s appointment builds on that foundation, bringing the institutional distribution experience to turn Kamino’s technology into the infrastructure the next phase of on-chain finance will run on.
“Michael understands the part of the market most technology companies underestimate: distribution, Wall Street, and regulation,” said Marius Ciubotariu, co-founder of Kamino. “Kamino has built resilient credit and liquidity infrastructure. Michael has spent his career connecting assets, institutions, and investors. Bringing those capabilities together gives Kamino the foundation to help institutions build the markets that come after tokenization.”
From Tokenized Assets to Functioning Markets
Tokenization changes how institutions can distribute and finance an asset by creating a shared, programmable record of the claim or entitlement. It has brought a growing range of financial assets onto public blockchains, with tokenized real-world assets having grown roughly fourfold since early 2025, and industry projections putting the market in the trillions of dollars by 2030. Yet, issuance alone is only the first step. Once on-chain, tokenized assets need pathways to distribution, compliant participation, ongoing lifecycle management, and, most importantly, the credit and liquidity that allow them to be financed and used after issuance.
Kamino is building those capabilities as a connected four-part system:
- User journey and distribution: APIs and software that let a financial institution and their clients discover, diligence, offer, and service an eligible asset inside its own product and brand while retaining the customer relationship.
- Legal and compliance: Tools and integrations that allow institutions and their licensed partners to apply eligibility, suitability, documentation, controls, audit trails, and reporting under their own policies and applicable law.
- Asset-manager lifecycle: Workflows connecting asset managers, issuers, administrators, transfer agents, pricing and data providers, and servicers from onboarding and tokenization through administration, reporting, and ongoing operation.
- Credit and liquidity: Financing, collateral management, lender connectivity, and liquidity mechanisms that can make an eligible asset financeable and transferable after issuance.
Kamino’s mission is to make the world’s best investments accessible through the financial platforms people already trust and give investors the freedom to borrow against what they own when they want liquidity.
The company already operates the on-chain credit engine at scale; its institutional expansion in the U.S. is the next step.
Building Kamino in New York
As part of the expansion, Kamino is evaluating office space in New York City and will build an institutional team spanning finance, product, legal, compliance, and business development.
“New York puts us alongside the asset managers, financial platforms, regulated service providers, capital providers, and talent that will shape this market,” Weisz said. “I have worked on the same problem at three levels: finding differentiated assets, distributing them through a regulated platform, and now rebuilding the infrastructure underneath both. Kamino is where those experiences come together.”
Kamino will continue building from its Solana foundation while expanding the capabilities and relationships required for U.S. and institutional markets. “This is an acceleration of Kamino’s product foundation,” Ciubotariu said. “We believe the next generation of financial markets will require more than bringing assets on-chain. They will require the infrastructure that allows those assets to move, finance and find distribution at scale. That is the market we intend to build.”
About Kamino
Kamino is the largest credit protocol on Solana and the largest credit platform for real-world assets on-chain, with more than $650 billion in cumulative transaction volume and more than $20 billion in loans originated with zero bad debt across every market cycle. The protocol has never experienced a hack or security incident and has undergone 30+ independent audits and four formal verifications. Kamino’s infrastructure is fully open source and is used by institutional participants including licensed exchanges, federally chartered digital asset banks, and publicly listed companies including Nasdaq-listed Forward Industries and Galaxy.
To learn more about the company, technology solutions and career opportunities, visit us on LinkedIn, on X @Kamino, or our website at www.kamino.com.
Media Contact
Lucy Peng
kamino@capvstrategies.com
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