KAMINO'S NO-EQUITY MODEL TESTS IF VALUE ACCRUAL IS DEFI'S LAST MOAT

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Kamino Finance has structured $KMNO to eliminate the equity/token split that has drained value from most DeFi protocols: the Kamino Foundation holds all IP and captures 100% of revenue, including institutional deals, with $KMNO as the sole ownership layer and no separate equity class for founders, investors, or the team. CEO WeiszM committed $20M over two years to expand Kamino into banks, brokerages, and wallets, with his personal allocation vesting only if $KMNO hits and holds a series of valuation milestones rather than on a standard time schedule. This is a direct answer to the bank tokenization challenge posed by products like StanChart's tokenized deposits in Hong Kong: banks can earn spread from on-chain infrastructure but cannot structurally route that upside to depositors, while a foundation-owned revenue model can. User-owned value accrual, not openness or permissionlessness, is DeFi's defensible moat as traditional finance moves on-chain.