"From Compound to Opening Bell: Leshner Uses $2M to Leverage On-Chain IPO Experiment" @rleshner (Founder of Compound & Robot Ventures) has recently made headlines: He spent $2.03M to acquire a 56.9% stake in the Nasdaq shell company LQR House ($LQR, community shorthand $YHC), and through his company Superstate, he is building on-chain compliant securities on Solana, starting to advance the "on-chain stock market." This is not just a simple shell arbitrage; it is an experimental narrative connecting DeFi × RWA × TradFi. Shell acquisition + On-chain infrastructure integration On July 14, Leshner submitted a 13D filing to the SEC, officially taking control of $LQR, a company that previously engaged in online liquor retail and now has virtually no actual business, with negative net assets, essentially a shell. He bought in at an average price of ~$3.77, with a market cap of only $2.5M, directly acquiring controlling interest, planning to clean up the board and reshape the direction (including a BTC treasury and on-chain securities). This is not his first exploration of TradFi. Superstate is an RWA asset management company he founded in 2023, raising $18.1M, with investors including Distributed Global, CoinFund, Galaxy, Arrington, and others. It has two main products: $USTB: An on-chain T-bill fund, AUM > $700M, growing rapidly, supporting ERC-20 liquidity transfers. $USCC: A carry-based fund, structured as USD cash + T-bill + crypto basis trade (BTC/ETH), sharing clearing/auditing/on-chain infrastructure with $USTB. Combined AUM of ~$856M, all aimed at qualified investors, following the route of "compliant on-chain asset management." Opening Bell: The Nasdaq of On-Chain Securities In May 2025, Superstate will launch Opening Bell: a native on-chain issuance + trading platform (based on Solana), supporting the full process of U.S. stock-style securities (no packaging, no synthetic). Support for: Full on-chain shareholder registration, auditing, compliance tracking. Direct issuance of on-chain original shares (SEC filing), supporting secondary trading. Building a composable financial layer (such as token dividends, stock collateral, etc.). $LQR may serve as the first "real-world" shell injection vehicle for Opening Bell, becoming a pilot for on-chain IPO + merger experiments. As @MapleLeafCap said: this is a proof-of-concept for the fusion of "shell companies + tokenization + SEC compliance." Completing the Last Piece of the RWA Puzzle The market has always had on-chain bonds (T-bills) as RWA, but on-chain equity has been a gap. Now, Superstate has completed the bootstrapping of "native on-chain securities" using TradFi tactics (13D control of the shell) + DeFi infrastructure (Solana, tokens, on-chain clearing and settlement). This is different from traditional tokenization: it is not about packaging traditional stocks into on-chain tokens, but about issuing original equity directly on-chain, trading on-chain, and ensuring compliance on-chain. The potential financial stack will become: stock registration → stock token → account opening + compliance → investment/trading → integration into the DeFi system (lending, LP, options, automatic dividend distribution). If this stack works, it could bring a "new entry point with a trillion-level TVL." This is not just a narrative; this is an offensive move. From Compound to Superstate, Leshner has been building the on-chain native version of finance. This LQR acquisition is a direct move by crypto natives to engage in financial infrastructure, balancing compliance, market, technology, and asset structure. If this succeeds, Opening Bell could become the on-chain alternative to Nasdaq. If successful, it provides another key for many founders looking to gain liquidity in U.S. stocks. Is there another way to trade crypto stocks?