“Onchain Vaults Are a New Distribution Channel for Asset Managers” — Interview with Kiln CEO Laszlo Szabo

Open yield infrastructure: On Tuesday, one of the leading enterprise-grade staking providers Kiln introduced Railnet, a new infrastructure layer designed to unify access to onchain yield. The system allows asset managers to build strategies that span both DeFi and real-world assets without juggling fragmented tools, integrations, and operational workflows.

• Why it matters: "A lending protocol settles instantly, while a tokenized bond fund takes days of KYC and regulatory processing. For asset managers, each integration becomes months of custom development, operational work, and bespoke risk handling. This is where Railnet comes in," Kiln co-founder and CEO Laszlo Szabo told us.

A new dawn: Railnet is the next step in Kiln’s push to offer clients access to onchain yield beyond staking, and it arrives just two months after the company — which oversees roughly $18 billion in stake — suffered a major exploit. In that incident, an attacker breached part of its infrastructure and stole approximately $41 million in SOL.

Interview: In our conversation with Szabo, we discuss the aftermath of the attack, Kiln’s strategic expansion beyond staking, and the growing institutional appetite for onchain yield solutions.

On the aftermath of the recent exploit:

On the evolution of Kiln from staking to broader onchain yield generation:

On how Railnet came into being:

On the core innovation behind Railnet and what it enables:

On the long-term vision for onchain asset management: