Keel Debuts as Sky's Solana-Focused 'Star' With a $2.5B Roadmap to Boost RWAs and DeFi

Keel, a new Solana-native capital allocator, debuted on Tuesday with a roadmap to channel up to $2.5 billion across decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenized asset markets in the Solana (SOL) ecosystem.

Keel is structured as being part of the Sky ecosystem, the long-running DeFi protocol formerly known as MakerDAO, as one of its autonomous units called "stars." That's part of Sky's major overhaul dubbed Endgame that includes creating smaller units, each of which is responsible for its own governance and innovation at the edge of the ecosystem. Sky is centered around issuing the USDS (USDS) and DAI (DAI) decentralized stablecoins, which have a combined supply of over $7 billion.

Spark, the first of Sky's stars, has grown to more than $10 billion in total value locked (TVL) on Ethereum while allocating funds to over $1 billion in tokenized assets. Grove, the second unit launched earlier this year, is focused on collateralized loan obligations.

Keel's mandate is acting as an on-chain capital allocator that sits between Solana DeFi protocols and the broader stablecoin economy. It receives a dedicated balance sheet from the USDS stablecoin reserves to deploy and support Solana-native protocols to generate yield. Early integrations include Kamino, Jupiter and Raydium, Solana-hosted marketplaces where liquidity can serve as a foundation for lending markets, routing and liquidity pools.

"Keel was founded on the belief that the next phase of on-chain finance growth needs more than new assets alone; it needs liquidity that can be accessed at speed and scale," said Cian Breathnach, CEO of Matariki Labs and a contributor to Keel. "Keel is the first to provide these enablers on Solana, delivering the capital and catalyzing force for the next stage of growth in on-chain lending, borrowing, tokenization and more."

Keel's plan could also help attract more tokenized real-world assets (RWA) to the Solana space, a fast-growing sector that aims to use blockchain rails to move and settle traditional financial assets like bonds, commodities and stocks.

Lily Liu, president of the Solana Foundation, called Keel "a key step" in positioning the blockchain as a leading marketplace for internet-scale capital markets. Rune Christensen, co-founder of Sky, added that Keel is set to become the largest capital allocator on Solana and will play a key role in shaping the DeFi and RWA landscape.

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