Galaxy targets institutional stablecoin yield with new DeFi vaults

Tech Galaxy targets institutional stablecoin yield with new DeFi vaults The crypto financial services firm launched Galaxy Curator, a Morpho-based platform that gives Fireblocks' 2,400 institutional clients access to onchain yield strategies. By Will Canny , AI Boost | Edited by Cheyenne Ligon Jul 16, 2026, 12:00 p.m. 3 min read Make preferred on Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Make preferred on Mike Novogratz, Galaxy founder and CEO. (CoinDesk) Summary Show Galaxy launched institutional vaults on Morpho, with distribution through Fireblocks Earn, allowing institutions to deploy idle stablecoins into curated onchain yield strategies. The offering applies Galaxy's institutional risk framework, including collateral standards, exposure limits and market monitoring, to DeFi lending while assets remain at the protocol level. Galaxy is debuting two products: a Quality Vault focused on capital preservation using blue-chip collateral, and an Enhanced Vault targeting higher yields through assets such as liquid restaking tokens, Pendle principal tokens and Ethena products. Galaxy Digital (GLXY) has launched an institutional vault curation business on decentralized lending protocol Morpho, expanding its push into onchain finance with a product designed to help clients earn yield on idle stablecoin balances without managing decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure themselves. The offering, called Galaxy Curator, is available through Fireblocks Earn, giving the custody platform's more than 2,400 institutional clients access to curated onchain lending strategies from within their existing treasury and custody workflows, the company said in a press release Thursday. The launch targets a longstanding challenge for institutional crypto holders. Large stablecoin balances often remain uninvested between settlements, deployments and operational holds due to the complexity and risk associated with directly interacting with decentralized finance protocols. The rollout comes as professional vault curation has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments of DeFi, with asset managers, trading firms and fintechs racing to package institutional-grade onchain yield products. Over the past year, firms including Bitwise, Gauntlet, Steakhouse Financial, Wintermute, Dialectic and RockawayX have launched or expanded curated vault offerings on Morpho. Competition to package onchain investment products has intensified as crypto platforms push beyond simple trading. Robinhood (HOOD) this month expanded its tokenization strategy with Robinhood Chain , adding tokenized stocks, decentralized lending and other DeFi products as it seeks to bring traditional financial assets onchain. Kraken , meanwhile, has rolled out its xStocks ecosystem, which lets eligible users trade tokenized U.S. equities and use them across DeFi, including as collateral and in yield-generating strategies. As competition shifts from tokenized assets to the infrastructure and products built around them, firms are also racing to attract institutional capital with curated onchain investment offerings. “Galaxy brings years of experience navigating market cycles and building robust trading and risk management platforms directly into our Curation offering,” a company spokesperson said in emailed comments. “Institutions know exactly what they're getting: disciplined strategy and rigorous controls around downstream risk. “This is an institutional-grade product, not a retail yield play, and reflects the natural next step for a firm with a long track record of building onchain capital markets,” the spokesperson added. “Retail-facing platforms aren't competitors, they're potential distribution partners. Our goal is to integrate Galaxy's vault products into both retail-facing and institutional platforms, with Fireblocks as our first of many, enabling partners to offer our crypto expertise and risk infrastructure directly to their users.” Rather than requiring firms to build dedicated DeFi operations, Galaxy said its vaults apply the same collateral standards, exposure limits and market monitoring used across its institutional lending and trading businesses while allowing clients to retain control of assets at the protocol level. Transactions continue to flow through Fireblocks' existing approval, signing and policy controls. The product launches with two strategies built on Morpho's lending infrastructure. A Quality Vault allocates capital exclusively to markets backed by blue-chip collateral with an emphasis on capital preservation, while an Enhanced Vault expands into higher-yielding assets, including liquid restaking tokens, Pendle principal tokens and Ethena products, in pursuit of higher returns with greater risk. Galaxy said the business draws on its broader institutional platform, which includes an average loan book of $1.4 billion, more than $3 billion in staked assets across five custodians and a distribution network of more than 1,600 institutional counterparties. Read more: Kraken unveils Bitcoin Vault, expanding yield push for BTC holders DeFi Galaxy Digital Exclusive Stablecoins AI Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards . For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy . Latest Crypto News 1 The most popular bitcoin call option has slipped by $10,000 33 minutes ago 2 Rebooting the internet: inside the open-source project to let AI programs pay each other 38 minutes ago 3 Bitcoin pulls back to $64,000 after hitting monthly high as bears take control 1 hour ago 4 Tether invests $20 million in Argentine neobank Ualá as it expands Latin America push 1 hour ago 5 U.S. adds four Iran central bank crypto wallets to sanctions, Tether freezes $131 million of contents 1 hour ago 6 Live updates: Bitcoin slips back to $64,000 after Korea rate hike, ahead of U.S. data 5 hours ago 7 U.S. Senate unanimously opposes clemency for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried 6 hours ago 8 A bitcoin wallet dormant since the 2017 peak just moved $383 million 6 hours ago 9 Ether outruns bitcoin as ETF money returns, almost all of from BlackRock's fund 7 hours ago 10 Two groups of bitcoin investors sell on the rise as U.S. inflation lifts prices to nearly $65,000 7 hours ago Latest Research Gate Leads Spot Market Share Gains as CEX Volumes Rise for First Time in Five Months Gate Leads Spot Market Share Gains as CEX Volumes Rise for First Time in Five Months CEX trading volumes rose for the first time in five months in June, with spot climbing 15.3% to $1.11T and RWA perpetual volumes surging to a record $311B. By CoinDesk Research Jul 13, 2026 CEX trading volumes rose for the first time in five months in June, with spot climbing 15.3% to $1.11T and RWA perpetual volumes surging to a record $311B. Why it matters : CEX trading volumes rose for the first time in five months in June, with spot climbing 15.3% to $1.11T and RWA perpetual volumes surging to a record $311B. View Full Report More From Tech A timeline of the Ethereum Foundation's ongoing shakeup Live updates: Bitcoin rises near $65,000 as markets get more good inflation news AI agentic payments enter mainstream as Visa, Mastercard, Ripple back x402 standard