Will Leshner turn LQR House into the MicroStrategy of the DeFi space?
Author: Deep Tide TechFlow
The listed alcoholic beverage retailer LQR House, located in Miami Beach, Florida, has not been very peaceful lately.
On July 14, 2025, documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that Compound founder Robert Leshner personally purchased about 600,000 shares of NASDAQ-listed LQR House Inc. (LQR) for a total stake of 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% in Monday's trading, reaching $10 before Wednesday's market close, which is double its purchase price.
However, Leshner's acquisition did not go smoothly, quickly staging a capital tug-of-war around control and clashes with the board.
War of control and counter-control
"I purchased a controlling stake in $YHC, a small-cap alcoholic beverage company with a somewhat tarnished history. My plan is to replace the board and help the company explore new strategies."
On July 14, Leshner expressed his 'intent to change personnel' on the day of the SEC announcement and alerted retail investors to the risks:
"I have not conducted extensive due diligence; there are signs that the company may be scheming. But please be extra cautious with any low-market-value companies; I may lose all my investments, and so could you."
According to SEC documents, Leshner plans to propose the removal of all current board members and nominate a new board team through written consent or a special shareholder meeting, in accordance with the company's articles and Nevada state law.
Leshner also emphasized that he has not yet reached any specific 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 for its prospectus to the SEC, stating that it plans to increase the number of shares available for sale and issuance through a sales agent to $46 million, not including shares worth $2,700 sold under the ATM agreement before the date of the supplementary materials.
Normally, issuing additional shares through ATM is a means of flexible financing for listed companies, but in the current sensitive moment, it clearly has deeper implications.
After reviewing the supplementary materials, Leshner stated: "I disagree with LQR House's approach to issuing shares under the ATM (selling stock); I believe this is ineffective, and I am consulting a lawyer."
On the next day, 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, misappropriating assets, 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 plan to convene a special shareholder meeting and 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 when a shareholder's ownership reaches or exceeds a preset 'trigger line,' the company automatically issues new shares to other shareholders (excluding the acquirer) at a significantly discounted price, thereby diluting the acquirer's shareholding ratio, increasing acquisition costs, and even forcing them to give up.
But Leshner's supporters are also not backing down.
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 launched an online campaign against LQR House CEO Sean Dollinger, claiming this would serve as a warning to CEOs of public companies treating the public market and investors as private piggy banks.
As of the time of publishing, this battle of control and counter-control is still ongoing, with both sides carefully testing each other, wary that any careless decision could produce negative effects.
Why LQR House?
LQR House is a NASDAQ small-cap company, whose market value once fell below $3 million. Even after a recent surge, its market value is still only around $11 million.
At first glance, this looks like a speculative game for a micro-cap stock, but Robert Leshner's entrance offers another possibility.
As the founder of Compound, Leshner has been a pioneer in on-chain finance. He led Compound to spark the DeFi lending trend and has actively explored the integration of DAOs and RWAs over the past two years. As crypto capital continuously seeks deep integration with traditional markets and crypto stocks emerge, this tech-born DeFi pioneer chose to bet on LQR House. The reasons may be threefold:
First, the identity of being a listed company. LQR House has NASDAQ listing qualifications, and the compliance channels have been opened. For crypto players looking to enter the traditional capital market, such 'lightweight' listed companies have unique strategic value. Bypassing the high costs of IPOs or SPACs, leveraging existing capital market channels makes it easier to become a springboard for funding, trust, and influence.
Secondly, the low threshold for holding shares and the loose equity structure. LQR House's equity is dispersed, and its float is small, allowing external capital to quickly gain control. This is highly attractive for investors looking to build cross-border capital platforms. Leshner secured 56.9% of the controlling stake for $2.03 million, offering much better value than most capital operation cases.
Finally, the company itself has begun preliminary engagement in the crypto business. According to CoinDesk, LQR House announced it would inject $1 million in Bitcoin into its treasury and activate crypto payment services. This means it has already taken a step toward bridging digital assets and traditional retail, laying the groundwork for extending into the crypto capital ecosystem.
Is a Compound version of MicroStrategy coming?
Since MicroStrategy included Bitcoin in its balance sheet and SBET became the new darling of the stock market, a trend of 'public companies holding crypto' has swept the global capital markets.
The market's biggest concern is: Will Leshner turn LQR House into the MicroStrategy of the DeFi space? Will he incorporate $COMP or even crypto lending into LQR House, forming a new asset reserve and capital operation model?
Of course, there is one thing that may be overlooked by everyone. In addition to being the founder of Compound, Leshner's latest title is founder of Superstate.
Superstate, a company founded in 2023, is aiming at on-chain funds and compliant tokenized assets.
Unlike Compound, which targets pure DeFi users, Superstate aims to provide traditional asset funds based on blockchain for institutional investors, 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, and institutional friendliness. Its ambition lies in bridging traditional finance and on-chain assets.
This may be Leshner's potential strategic direction for LQR House.
As a ready-made NASDAQ-listed platform, LQR House has 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 that it may create a 'public platform under Superstate' to draw traffic for on-chain products from the public market, providing a legal and compliant secondary market channel for fundraising for Superstate's funds.
Additionally, LQR House's previous foray into crypto payments and digital asset layout can also serve as a 'testing ground' or ecological application landing channel for Superstate's products.
This is somewhat different from MicroStrategy incorporating Bitcoin into its reports and SharpLink Gaming reserving Ethereum; what Leshner may want to do is to embed on-chain funds and tokenized assets into the capital operations of listed companies.
Truly bringing 'on-chain capital' into the traditional financial framework, creating a compliant DeFi-TradFi linkage model.
This will be a deeper experiment.
It's not just a story of holding crypto, but a capital story.
This article is reprinted with permission from Deep Tide TechFlow.
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