Listed alcohol retailer LQR House, based in Miami Beach, Florida, hasn't been easy lately.

On July 14, 2025, US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents show that Compound founder Robert Leshner used personal funds to purchase approximately 600,000 shares of the NASDAQ listed company LQR House Inc. (LQR), with a shareholding ratio as high as 56.9%, making him the largest shareholder.

According to the 13D form submitted, Leshner's total investment is about US$2.03 million, and some shares were purchased at US$3.77 per share through Interactive Brokers.

The news caused LQR House's share price to rise 45% in Monday's trading and reached $10 before the market closed on Wednesday, doubling its purchase price.

However, Leshner's acquisition was not an easy one; it soon staged a capital attack and defense drama surrounding control and a clash with the board of directors.

Control and Counter-Control War
“I bought a controlling interest in $YHC, a liquor company with

a low market capitalization and a somewhat dishonorable history. My plan is to change the board of directors and help the company explore new strategies. ” On July 14, on the day of the SEC announcement, Leshner revealed his “intention to replace someone” and warned retail investors about the risk: “I haven't done extensive due diligence, and there are signs that the company is plotting something wrong. But please be extra careful with any low market cap company; I could lose all my investments, and so could you.

”

According to the SEC documents, Leshner plans to propose the removal of all current board members and nominate a new team of directors through

written consent or a special shareholders' meeting in accordance with the company's articles of association and Nevada law.

Leshner also emphasized that no specific agreements have yet been reached with other shareholders or third parties, but further communication and collaboration with relevant parties is not ruled out in the future.

However, Leshner's plans seem to have run into a bit of a snag.

On July 14, LQR House submitted supplementary prospectus materials to the SEC. According to the documents, LQR House stated that it would increase the number of shares it can sell and sell through sales agents to $46 million, excluding shares worth $2,700 worth of shares sold under ATM agreements up to the date of the supplementary documents.

As a rule, additional ATMs are a means of flexible financing for listed companies, but in this sensitive moment, it clearly has a deeper meaning.

After reading the supplementary materials, Leshner said, “I don't agree with LQR House's approach to issuing ATMs (selling shares); I don't think it's working; I'm consulting a lawyer. ” The next day, July 15, Kingbird Ventures LLC, a shareholder of LQR House, filed a lawsuit in the Florida court, accusing CEO Sean Dollinger and board members of the board of directors abusing fiduciary responsibilities, misappropriation of assets, and violating the company's articles of association; requesting the court to

freeze certain share changes and suspend board powers to prevent “control hijacking.”

If the court rules on a temporary restraining order (TRO) or injunction, Leshner's plan to hold a special shareholders' meeting and remove the current director may be temporarily suspended.

Furthermore, according to sources, the company may try to fight back with the “Poison Pill” program. The so-called “poison pill plan” means that when a shareholder's shareholding ratio reaches or exceeds a predetermined “trigger line,” the company will automatically issue new shares to other shareholders (not including the acquirer) at a significant discount, thereby diluting the buyer's share ratio, increasing acquisition costs, and even

forcing them to abandon it.

But Leshner's supporters aren't far behind 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. Meanwhile, Makesy Capital also launched an online campaign against LQR House CEO Sean Dollinger, saying it would be a

warning for CEOs of listed companies that use the open market and investors as private piggy banks.

As of press time, this war of control and countercontrol is still being carried out intensively. Both sides are carefully testing and beware that any careless decision may have negative effects.

Why LQR House?

LQR House is a Nasdaq small-cap company that once had a market capitalization of less than $3 million. Even after experiencing a recent surge, the current market capitalization is only around $11 million.

At first glance, this looks like a speculative game on micromarket concept stocks, but Robert Leshner's entry suggests another possibility.

As the founder of Compound, Leshner was a pioneer in on-chain finance. He led Compound to set off the DeFi lending trend, and has also actively explored the combination of DAO and RWA over the past two years. As crypto capital continues to seek deep integration with traditional markets, crypto stocks are coming together. This tech-savvy DeFi pioneer chose to bet on LQR House.

There are probably three reasons:
First, the status of a listed company.

LQR House is eligible to be listed on the NASDAQ, and the compliance channel has already been opened. For crypto players who want to enter traditional capital markets, such “lightweight” listed companies have unique strategic value. Bypassing the high costs of an IPO or SPAC, it's easier to become a springboard for capital, trust, and

voice with ready-made capital market channels.

Second, the holding threshold is low, and the equity structure is loose. The shares of LQR House are scattered and the circulation market is small, making it easy for external capital to quickly gain control. This is very appealing to investors who want to build a cross-border capital platform. Leshner used $2.03 million to take 56.9% of the controlling interest, far outperforming most capital operation cases.

Finally, the company itself has already had initial exposure to the crypto business. According to CoinDesk, LQR House has announced the injection of $1 million in Bitcoin into the treasury and the launch of a crypto payment service. This means that it has taken a step between connecting digital assets and

traditional retail, and has the foundation for expanding into the crypto capital ecosystem.

Is Compound's version of MicroStrategy coming?

Since MicroStrategy added Bitcoin to its balance sheet and SBET became the new stock market darling, global capital markets have seen a trend of “public companies holding coins.”

The market's biggest concern is: Will Leshner turn LQR House into DeFi's MicroStrategy? Will $COMP or even crypto lending business be incorporated into LQR House

to form a new asset reserve and capital operation model?

Of course, there's one more thing that might be overlooked. In addition to being the founder of Compound, Leshner's latest title is Superstate Founder.

Superstate, a company founded in 2023, is targeting the circuit between on-chain funds (On-Chain Funds) and compliant tokenized assets.

Unlike Compound, which targets pure DeFi users, Superstate is committed to providing institutional investors with traditional blockchain-based asset funds. The first product is a tokenized version of the “Short-Term US Treasury Bond Fund,” which targets the traditional financial market.

The keywords that Superstate has always emphasized are: on-chain compliance, asset tokenization, institutional friendliness. Its ambition is to open up

a connection channel between traditional finance and on-chain assets.

This is probably Leshner's potential layout direction for LQR House.

As a ready-made NASDAQ listing platform, LQR House has a “ticket” to the traditional financial market and can provide an open capital market display window for Superstate's compliant products, RWA businesses, or on-chain funds.

The combination of the two means that it is possible to create a “listing platform under Superstate”, use the open market to channel on-chain products, and provide a legally compliant secondary market channel for Superstate fund raising.

In addition, LQR House has previously been involved in crypto payments and digital asset layout, and can also be used as a “test field” for Superstate products or an ecological application implementation channel.

This is slightly different from the logic of MicroStrategy writing Bitcoin into statements and SharpLink Gaming reserving Ethereum. What Leshner probably wants to do is embed on-chain funds and tokenized assets into the capital operations of listed companies.

It really brings “on-chain capital” into the traditional financial framework and creates a compliant DeFi-TradFi linkage model.

This is going to be a deeper experiment.

It's not just a story about holding coins; it's a capital story.