Will Leshner turn LQR House into the MicroStrategy of the DeFi field?
Written by: Deep Tide TechFlow
The publicly traded liquor retailer LQR House, located in Miami Beach, Florida, has not been peaceful lately.
On July 14, 2025, SEC documents showed that Compound founder Robert Leshner had acquired approximately 600,000 shares of Nasdaq-listed LQR House Inc. (LQR) with personal funds, raising his ownership stake to 56.9%, becoming the largest shareholder.
According to the submitted 13D form, Leshner's total investment amounts to approximately $2.03 million, with some shares purchased through Interactive Brokers at $3.77 per share.
This news caused LQR House's stock price to rise by 45% during Monday's trading, reaching $10 before Wednesday's market close, doubling its purchase price.
However, Leshner's acquisition was not smooth sailing, quickly unfolding into a capital offensive and defensive drama surrounding control and board confrontations.
Battle of Control and Counter-Control
"I have acquired a controlling stake in $YHC, a low market cap, somewhat disreputable liquor company. My plan is to replace the board and help the company explore new strategies." On July 14, Leshner expressed his "intention to replace" during the SEC announcement, warning retail investors: "I have not conducted extensive due diligence, and there are signs that the company is up to no good. But please be particularly cautious with any low market cap company; I could lose all my investment, and so could you."
According to the SEC document, Leshner plans to propose the dismissal of all current board members and nominate a new board team either through written consent or by convening a special shareholders meeting, in accordance with the company's bylaws and Nevada law.
Leshner also emphasized that he has not yet reached any concrete agreements with other shareholders or third parties, but does not rule out further communication and collaboration with relevant parties in the future.
However, Leshner's plans seem to have encountered some obstacles.
On July 14, LQR House submitted supplementary materials to the SEC, stating in the documents that LQR House intends to increase the number of shares to be offered and sold through a sales agent to $46 million, excluding shares worth $2,700 sold under the ATM agreement prior to the supplementary document date.
Normally, ATM equity issuance is a means for listed companies to flexibly finance, but at this sensitive moment, it clearly has deeper implications.
Leshner stated after reviewing the supplementary materials: "I disagree with LQR House's approach to issuing shares through ATM (selling stocks), I believe it is ineffective, and I am consulting a lawyer." The next day, on July 15, LQR House's shareholder Kingbird Ventures LLC filed a lawsuit in Florida court, accusing CEO Sean Dollinger and board members of breaching fiduciary duties, asset misappropriation, and violating corporate bylaws; requesting the court to freeze certain share changes and suspend board powers to prevent "control hijacking."
If the court rules for a temporary restraining order (TRO) or injunction, Leshner's attempt to convene a special shareholders meeting and plans to dismiss the current board may be temporarily shelved.
Additionally, according to sources, the company may attempt to use a "poison pill" strategy for counterattack. The so-called "poison pill" refers to a plan where, once a shareholder's ownership reaches or exceeds a preset "trigger line," the company will automatically issue new shares to other shareholders (excluding the acquirer) at a significantly discounted price, thereby diluting the acquirer's ownership stake, increasing acquisition costs, or even forcing the acquirer to abandon their bid.
But Leshner's supporters are not to be outdone either.
On July 16, 2025, Makesy Capital announced the acquisition of 0.1% of LQR House's shares and promised to support Leshner's reforms. At the same time, Makesy Capital also launched an online campaign against LQR House CEO Sean Dollinger, stating that this would serve as a warning to CEOs of publicly traded companies who treat the public market and investors as private piggy banks.
As of the time of publication, this battle of control and counter-control remains tense, with both sides carefully probing each other, wary that any careless decision could have negative repercussions.
Why LQR House?
LQR House is a small-cap Nasdaq company, with a market cap that once fell below $3 million, and even after a recent surge, its market cap is still around $11 million.
At first glance, this seems like a speculative game of a micro-cap concept stock, but Robert Leshner's entry presents another possibility.
As the founder of Compound, Leshner has been a pioneer of on-chain finance. He led Compound in sparking the DeFi lending wave and has actively explored the integration of DAO and RWA over the past two years. As crypto capital continuously seeks deep integration with traditional markets and crypto stocks flourish, this tech-origin DeFi pioneer has chosen to bet on LQR House. The reasons may be threefold:
First, the identity of a listed company. LQR House has Nasdaq listing qualifications, and the compliance channel has already been opened. For crypto players wanting to enter the traditional capital market, such "lightweight" listed companies have unique strategic value. Bypassing the high costs associated with IPOs or SPACs, leveraging existing capital market channels makes it easier to become a springboard for funds, trust, and influence.
Secondly, the holding threshold is low, and the equity structure is loose. LQR House's equity is dispersed, and the float is small, making it easier for external capital to quickly gain control. This is highly attractive for investors looking to build cross-border capital platforms. Leshner acquired 56.9% of the controlling stake for $2.03 million, which is far more cost-effective than most capital operation cases.
Finally, the company itself has begun initial contact with crypto business. According to CoinDesk, LQR House announced a $1 million Bitcoin injection into its treasury and activated crypto payment services. This means it has taken a step in bridging digital assets with traditional retail, laying the groundwork for extending into the crypto capital ecosystem.
Is the Compound version of MicroStrategy coming?
Since MicroStrategy incorporated Bitcoin into its balance sheet, and SBET became the new darling of the stock market, a trend of "public companies holding cryptocurrencies" has swept through global capital markets.
The market's biggest concern is: Will Leshner turn LQR House into the MicroStrategy of the DeFi field? Will he incorporate $COMP or even crypto lending into LQR House, forming a new model for asset reserves and capital operations?
Of course, there is one thing that may be overlooked. In addition to being the founder of Compound, Leshner's latest title is founder of Superstate.
Superstate, a company founded in 2023, focuses on on-chain funds and compliant tokenized assets.
Unlike Compound, which targets pure DeFi users, Superstate aims to provide institutional investors with blockchain-based traditional asset funds, with its first product being a tokenized version of a "short-term U.S. Treasury fund," directly targeting the traditional financial market.
The key phrases emphasized by Superstate are: on-chain compliance, asset tokenization, institutional friendliness. Its ambition is to bridge traditional finance with on-chain assets.
This may be Leshner's potential layout direction for LQR House.
As an existing Nasdaq-listed platform, LQR House holds the "ticket" to the traditional financial market, which can provide a public capital market showcase for Superstate's compliant products, RWA business, or on-chain funds.
The combination of the two means the potential creation of a "public platform under Superstate," using the public market to channel traffic to on-chain products and providing a legal and compliant secondary market for Superstate's fundraising.
Additionally, LQR House's previous involvement in crypto payments and digital asset layouts could serve as a "testing ground" for Superstate's products or a channel for ecological applications.
This is somewhat different from MicroStrategy writing Bitcoin into its reports or SharpLink Gaming reserving Ethereum; what Leshner may want to do is integrate on-chain funds and tokenized assets into the capital operations of a listed company.
Truly bringing "on-chain capital" into the traditional financial framework and creating a compliant DeFi-TradFi linkage model.
This will be a deeper experiment.
It's not just a story about holding cryptocurrencies, but a story about capital.
