Galaxy Digital Acquires Alluvial Finance, Becomes Development Company for Liquid Collective

Galaxy Digital has taken a significant step in its institutional staking strategy with the acquisition of Alluvial Finance, the former development organization behind Liquid Collective. The move positions Galaxy as the new Development Company for the enterprise-grade liquid staking protocol and expands its ability to build and maintain infrastructure for institutions that participate in onchain markets.

Liquid Collective's Growth and Market Context

Liquid staking has grown rapidly as more participants seek access to staking rewards while preserving liquidity for activity across decentralized finance applications. Liquid Collective launched in 2023 in partnership with Alluvial and quickly became a prominent player in the segment. The protocol allows institutional users who stake Ethereum or Solana to receive representative tokens (such as $LsSOL) that they can use for collateral management, trading, or other onchain strategies.

In 2025, Liquid Collective tripled its total value locked (TVL) to approximately $1 billion. It hit a record high of $1.75 billion in August 2025, according to DefiLlama data. The protocol applies a 10% service fee to staking rewards and distributes the revenue among ecosystem participants and its treasury. It reached record revenues in Q3 2025, generating $743,645 from $7.3 million in fees.

Galaxy's Acquisition and Strategic Rationale

Galaxy states that the acquisition advances its goal of providing end-to-end services for institutions that operate onchain. By taking over as the Development Company for Liquid Collective, Galaxy assumes full responsibility for developing and maintaining the protocol. The company has begun integrating Alluvial's engineering team and technology stack.

"Galaxy has always built the infrastructure institutions need to operate confidently onchain, from trading and custody to lending and staking. Becoming Liquid Collective's Development Company is a natural extension of that mission. Galaxy is doubling down on building the next generation of institutional staking products and access to non-custodial worldwide." - Michael Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Galaxy.

Liquid Collective CEO Chris Matta underscores that the protocol was created to provide institutions with a secure and transparent entry point into liquid staking. He notes that Galaxy's involvement enhances the protocol's scalability and strengthens its foundation for future growth.

Liquid Collective will continue operating independently under The Liquid Foundation, an ownerless foundation designed to support neutral governance and transparency. The foundation intends to expand participation in governance to additional stakeholders, including custodians, exchanges, ETF issuers, liquidity providers, and digital asset trusts.

Solana Liquid Staking Landscape

Blockworks data highlights the evolving structure of Solana's staking ecosystem. About 57.74% of the $SOL supply is native staked, reflecting a strong long-term commitment to the network. Non-staked $SOL represents 32.31% of the supply. Liquid staked $SOL accounts for 9.96%, signaling gradual but growing adoption of liquid staking solutions.

The segment remains small relative to native staking, though nearly 10% of supply now uses liquid staking tokens, such as Liquid Collective's $LsSOL or Marinade's $mSOL, to participate in DeFi.

Galaxy and Liquid Collective's Earlier Collaboration

Galaxy and Liquid Collective initiated a strategic collaboration in June 2025 to support institutional adoption of liquid staking. Galaxy began providing OTC support for the $LsETH token and accepting it as collateral through its global markets division. The collaboration also extended access to $LsETH and future staking products to clients of Galaxy Asset Management.

The partnership expanded into infrastructure participation, with Galaxy joining Liquid Collective's active set of node operators alongside firms such as Coinbase and Figment.

Weeks after that collaboration was announced, it manifested in the launch of Liquid Collective's Liquid Staked SOL ($LsSOL), which was touted as an institutional-grade liquid staking token. $LsSOL focuses on compliance, security, and broad accessibility for market participants. It launched with support from major custodians and exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, Anchorage Digital, Fireblocks, alongside Galaxy. This coordination marked one of the strongest institutional staking efforts on Solana.

In September 2025, Galaxy became the first Nasdaq-listed company to tokenize its SEC-registered equity directly on the Solana blockchain. The move was made in partnership with Superstate. Eligible shareholders can tokenize their Class A common stock and hold it in their wallets.

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