Kamino appointed Michael Weisz as chief executive on Sept. 15, tasking him with leading the Solana lending protocol’s institutional growth and expansion into the U.S. market.

The appointment puts Weisz in charge of a protocol with $1.352 billion in total value locked and $1.022 billion in active loans, according to DefiLlama. Kamino said Weisz has more than two decades of experience in fintech and private markets.

In a post introducing his thesis letter, Weisz said financial-services infrastructure is moving onchain and described Kamino as a potential provider of access, distribution and liquidity for assets.

“Tokenization worked,” Weisz wrote. “But what’s missing is what comes after you put an asset on-chain. That requires liquidity, credit, distribution and infrastructure.” He said Kamino has spent four years building that foundation.

Kamino’s documentation lists Earn, Borrow, Multiply and Swap. It says its curator tooling lets professional risk managers design custom lending strategies for institutions, deploy isolated lending markets with their own risk parameters and route depositor assets across reserves.

A $1.35 Billion Lending Protocol

DefiLlama ranks Kamino Lend seventh among the lending protocols it tracks, accounting for 2.7% of the category’s $50.438 billion in TVL. The data provider says Kamino’s TVL increased 29.9% over the previous 30 days and tracks 150 yield pools for the protocol.

DefiLlama describes Kamino Lend as a peer-to-pool borrowing system that matches borrowers and lenders. The protocol operates on Solana, and its official X profile describes Kamino as credit infrastructure on the network.

Kamino did not say in its announcement whether Weisz replaces another CEO. Marius publicly identifies himself as a Kamino cofounder.

Weisz said he was joining to lead Kamino’s “next chapter,” while Kamino described that mandate as institutional growth and U.S. expansion.