Grove Protocol
Grove is institutional-grade credit infrastructure operating within the Sky Ecosystem. Through non-custodial, vault-based infrastructure, Grove routes stablecoin liquidity into onchain and offchain credit strategies, including tokenized collateralized loan obligations, Treasury products and private credit. Grove was unveiled in June 2025 with a $1 billion Sky Ecosystem commitment to the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Strategy. Its native GROVE token launched on Ethereum in June 2026. [1] [4] [5]
Overview
Grove operates as a Sky Prime Agent within the Sky Ecosystem, formerly known as MakerDAO, which issues the USDS stablecoin. The protocol routes stablecoin liquidity into diversified credit strategies, including AAA-rated CLO tranches, private credit, and tokenized Treasury bills, using both onchain and offchain mechanisms. At its 2025 launch, Grove was described as a "Star" within Sky's Endgame governance framework, designating it as a semi-autonomous protocol operating within the Sky Ecosystem. [1] As of July 2026, Grove reported approximately $2.66 billion in total value locked across 16 active allocations. [2]
Background
Grove Labs, the development organization behind Grove Protocol, was co-founded by Mark Phillips, Kevin Chan and Sam Paderewski. Grove Labs operates as a subsidiary of Steakhouse Financial, a DeFi-focused financial advisory firm. [3] [4]
Grove was publicly unveiled on June 25, 2025, with Phillips leading product and strategy, Chan leading product and engineering, and Paderewski leading structured finance and credit. [3] [4]
Technology
The technology underpinning Grove comprises the Grove Allocator, a non-custodial, vault-based smart contract system designed to maintain onchain custody of funds at all times. This system consists of four core contracts: ALMProxy for custody, MainnetController for Ethereum hub logic, ForeignController for operations on spoke chains, and RateLimits for managing capital movement within configured limits. These components work together through a three-layer architecture separating custody, business logic, and risk management. Governance of these operations relies on roles inherited from OpenZeppelin AccessControl, including DEFAULT_ADMIN_ROLE, RELAYER, FREEZER, and CONTROLLER. [2]
RateLimits enforce time-based caps for preventing excessive capital movements, while the architecture supports integrations with Aave V3, Curve, Uniswap V3, Ethena, Pendle Finance, Centrifuge RWA vaults, and cross-chain bridging via CCTP and LayerZero. [2]
Supported Networks and Security
Grove operates across Ethereum, Avalanche, Base, Plume and Monad. Its hub-and-spoke architecture routes stablecoin capital between supported networks using infrastructure including Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol and LayerZero. [2] [11]
Grove states that its smart contracts have been audited by independent security firms and researchers including Spearbit, ChainSecurity and Certora. Protocol integrations are also reviewed before deployment, while external systems rely on audits conducted by their respective teams. [11]
Products
Grove's suite of products includes the Grove Allocator, Grove Basin, Grove Financing, and Grove Savings. The Grove Allocator provides infrastructure for deploying stablecoin capital into diversified credit strategies.
Grove Basin, announced on 14 May 2026, focuses on providing instant onchain stablecoin liquidity for eligible tokenholders related to tokenized credit products. Grove Financing offers financing and liquidity services tailored for credit originators. Grove Savings acts as an interface to the Sky Savings Rate, allowing users to supply [USDS] or [USDC] to mint sUSDS, with the Sky Savings Rate governed by Sky Ecosystem's directives. Grove Points launched on 21 May 2026 and accrue to participants who supply through Grove Savings. [1]
GROVE Token
The GROVE token is the native ERC-20 token of the Grove Protocol with a genesis supply of 10,000,000,000 tokens, launched on Ethereum in June 2026. The token is expected to support governance activities within the Grove ecosystem, facilitating community participation in proposal processes. Staking and voting mechanics are anticipated as forthcoming developments. Its total supply is allocated as follows: 70% to the Sky Ecosystem, 25% to Grove Team and Contributors, and 5% to the Grove Foundation. [5] The GROVE token began trading on Coinbase in limit-only mode on 6 July 2026, followed by a listing on KuCoin the next day. [6]
In July 2026, GROVE became available through Sky Ecosystem Rewards. Eligible users can supply USDS through the rewards module and accrue GROVE in proportion to their share of the pool. The reward rate is variable and depends on the token issuance rate established by Sky governance, GROVE’s market price and the size of the pool. The program is subject to jurisdictional restrictions. [10]
Partnerships and Deployments
In June 2025, the Sky Ecosystem committed up to $1 billion through Grove’s infrastructure to the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Strategy, a tokenized fund developed with Centrifuge. The strategy provides exposure to AAA-rated collateralized loan obligations and is managed by the same portfolio management team responsible for Janus Henderson’s AAA CLO ETF. [4] [7]
In July 2025, Grove expanded its Allocator infrastructure to Avalanche with a target of deploying up to $250 million across tokenized real-world assets. The deployment covered both the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Fund and the Janus Henderson Anemoy Treasury Fund, which provides exposure to short-term U.S. Treasury securities. [8]
In December 2025, Grove participated in Galaxy Digital’s first tokenized collateralized loan obligation with a $50 million allocation. The companies expanded their relationship in July 2026 by announcing a $500 million warehouse lending facility. [9]
Under the facility, Grove serves as the warehouse lender, committing USDS through a dedicated lending vehicle to finance institutional loans originated and serviced by Galaxy. Eligible loans are senior secured and overcollateralized by Bitcoin or Ether, including native-staked and liquid-staked Ether. Anchorage Digital and BitGo serve as qualified custodians, while Chronicle price feeds are used to monitor loan-to-value ratios. [9]
