Share this article
Newest 'Star' in Sky Ecosystem Launches With $1B Tokenized Credit Strategy
Grove will receive a $1 billion allocation from DeFi lending giant Sky to invest in tokenized collateralized loan obligations.
Updated Jun 25, 2025, 1:53 p.m. Published Jun 25, 2025, 12:00 p.m.
Make us preferred on Google
What to know:
- Grove, a new DeFi protocol, has launched with a $1 billion commitment to integrate traditional financial assets with decentralized finance.
- The protocol focuses on collateralized loan obligations to provide crypto-native protocols access to real-world asset investments.
- Grove is part of the Sky Ecosystem, which is undergoing a transformation to enhance governance and innovation through autonomous units called 'stars.'
Grove, a new decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol focused on institutional-grade credit infrastructure, emerged from stealth on Wednesday with a $1 billion commitment to a tokenized asset strategy.
The protocol aims to bridge DeFi with traditional financial assets by routing on-chain capital into regulated credit investments, focusing on collateralized loan obligations (CLOs). Through its infrastructure, Grove gives crypto-native protocols and asset managers access to real-world asset (RWA) investments, helping them put idle reserves to work and a yield that's independent from crypto markets.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
The launch also marks Grove’s debut as the latest "Star" within the Sky Ecosystem, one of the largest and longest running DeFi lender formerly known as MakerDAO. Sky is undergoing an overhaul called Endgame that breaks the protocol into autonomous units called "stars," each responsible for its own governance and innovation at the edge of the ecosystem. The first such entity was Spark, a yield-earning and borrowing protocol. Sky also issues the $3.7 billion DAI and $3.4 billion USDS stablecoins, and has been increasingly shifting reserves to real-world assets such as tokenized Treasuries.
Grove starts out with a $1 billion allocation from Sky that will put into the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Strategy (JAAA), a tokenized fund of managed by Janus Henderson and built on Centrifuge, a blockchain platform that specializes in real-world asset tokenization.
The core contributor team behind Grove — Mark Phillips, Kevin Chan and Sam Paderewski — had previous experiences at Deloitte, Hildene Capital Management, BlockTower Capital and Citibank before transitioning to DeFi. The protocol was incubated by DeFi specialist Steakhouse Financial, a firm that played a key role in bringing real-world assets into the Sky system.
"While tokenized treasuries have paved the way, there's a growing demand for more diversified, high-quality assets on-chain," said Anil Sood, chief strategy and growth officer of Centrifuge.
“With the launch of Grove, for the first time, protocols can access liquid, institutional-grade CLOs while maintaining the flexibility to pivot between DeFi and TradFi yield environments," said Sam Paderewski.
More For You
KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
More For You
Stablecoins moved $35 trillion last year but only 1% of it was for 'real world' payments
While stablecoins settled around $35 trillion last year, only around 1% of that represented genuine payments like remittances and payroll, a new report found.
What to know:
- Stablecoins processed more than $35 trillion in transactions last year, but only about 1% of that reflected real-world payments, a report by McKinsey and Artemis Analytics found.
- The study estimated that roughly $390 billion in genuine stablecoin payments, such as vendor payments, payrolls, remittances and capital markets settlements.
- Despite rapid growth and increasing interest from traditional payment firms like Visa and Stripe, true stablecoin payments still account for just a tiny fraction of the more than $2 quadrillion global payments market, the report said.
Top Stories
