Sky Invests $1 Billion in Grove Protocol for Tokenized CLOs, Opening DeFi to High-Quality Institutional Credit Products
Des CLOs tokenisés pour attirer les gros capitaux
Sky is ramping up its game. The former MakerDAO, now rebranded as Sky, has just announced the launch of Grove, a new DeFi protocol… with a whopping $1 billion entry ticket. The goal? Injecting real-world assets into the crypto universe through high-end securitized loans.
$1 billion. That’s the amount already allocated by Sky to Grove to invest in CLOs (Collateralized Loan Obligations), portfolios of securitized loans widely used in institutional finance.
However, everything here is tokenized. Grove will funnel these funds into the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO strategy (JAAA), a fund managed by Janus Henderson and tokenized via Centrifuge, a renowned expert in real asset tokenization. A first of this scale.
The message is clear: the future of DeFi lies in returns less correlated with the crypto market and more aligned with ‘traditional’ finance.
Sky Pursues its Endgame Plan: ‘Stars’ Take Over
This launch is part of Sky’s major restructuring, dubbed Endgame. The protocol, which already manages over $7 billion in stablecoins (DAI and USDS), is gradually dividing into autonomous units called ‘stars.’ Each acts as an independent entity with its own governance, vision, and products.
Spark was the first ‘star’ (focused on borrowing and yield); Grove is the second, and no less significant: it aims to build the credit infrastructure of DeFi in the future.
Des vétérans de la finance derrière le projet
Grove was not designed by amateurs. Its founding team consists of profiles from Deloitte, Citibank, BlockTower Capital, and Hildene Capital. Names that resonate in the world of institutional finance, now turned towards decentralization.
The project was incubated by Steakhouse Financial, the crypto consulting firm that has already helped Sky transition a large portion of its reserves to real assets. Valuable strategic expertise to secure returns without depending on crypto markets.
CLOs: The Next Step for RWAs?
For the past two years, DeFi has rushed towards ‘real-world assets’ (RWAs), notably tokenized US Treasury bonds. But according to Anil Sood (Centrifuge), market appetite is evolving:
‘Treasuries paved the way, but demand is now shifting towards more diversified and high-quality assets.’
With Grove, DeFi gains access for the first time to liquid and institutionally high-quality CLOs, while maintaining unprecedented strategic flexibility between the TradFi and DeFi worlds.
