Alexander Ray, our partner in CTDG initiative, Web3 entrepreneur, co-founder of Albus Protocol and JPool, has died

Alexander Ray’s passing marked not just the loss of a respected builder in the Web3 space, but of a close and trusted partner with whom our team collaborated to strengthen validator infrastructure and staking systems within the Solana ecosystem as part of the CTDG initiative.

The Web3 community has lost a builder whose contributions deserve to be acknowledged with clarity and gratitude.

For us, his absence is felt both professionally and personally, in the work we shared, the decisions we shaped together and the long-term systems he helped build.

Ray was not just an engineer, a founder or a protocol architect. He was someone whose work genuinely strengthened the ecosystems he touched, and whose approach to collaboration reflected precision, reliability and a deep focus on long-term value.

This tribute is not a formal announcement. It is a recognition of what he built, how he worked and why his absence is felt so deeply by the teams and networks he helped shape.

For those of us who had the chance to work alongside him, his impact was unmistakable, not because he sought visibility, but because he consistently made the work better.

Honoring the Work and Legacy of Alexander Ray

Ray was known for his work at the intersection of regulated DeFi, staking infrastructure, tokenization and onchain compliance, focusing on building long-term financial systems rather than short-term speculative products.

Before entering crypto, Ray spent more than two decades working in enterprise software, cloud infrastructure and financial systems, including roles connected to Deutsche Bank Frankfurt and General Electric. His background in large-scale enterprise architecture and financial systems later shaped his approach to Web3; he approached blockchain not as a market cycle, but as future global financial infrastructure.

Ray’s first major step into Web3 engineering came with the creation of PointGroup, a venture builder studio and umbrella organization through which he incubated and developed multiple blockchain infrastructure projects. Rather than operating as a single product company, PointGroup functioned as a platform for building and scaling protocol-level initiatives across staking, compliant DeFi and onchain financial infrastructure.

Within PointGroup, Ray was directly involved in the creation of several notable Web3 projects, including JPool, a Solana-native liquid staking pool; Albus Protocol, a privacy-preserving compliance layer for regulated decentralized finance; and Alula, a Stellar-native lending protocol focused on onchain credit and capital efficiency.

JPool became one of the notable liquid staking platforms on Solana, allowing users to stake SOL and receive JSOL, a liquid staking token that could be freely used across the Solana DeFi ecosystem. Through a smart delegation system, JPool distributed stakes across a broad validator set and helped move Solana staking away from a locked, passive model toward a more liquid and composable format. Public data indicates that JPool manages over 1.3 million SOL in staked assets across more than 170 validators, placing it among the larger liquid staking pools on the network.

Alongside staking infrastructure, Ray also worked on one of the more complex challenges in crypto — regulated decentralized finance. As co-founder and CEO of Albus Protocol, he led the development of a compliance layer for public blockchains focused on tokenized real-world assets and institutional DeFi flows. Albus was built as a privacy-preserving compliance system that embeds regulatory logic directly onchain, allowing platforms to meet KYC and regulatory requirements without exposing raw personal data. The project became a key piece of infrastructure for tokenized asset platforms and regulated onchain markets.

Beyond product development, Ray played an active role in shaping industry discussions regarding regulation and tokenization. As a member of the Forbes Business Council, he wrote and spoke about onchain identity, compliant token issuance and the future of regulated DeFi. He also appeared at European Web3 events focused on infrastructure and institutional adoption.

Across all of his projects — JPool, Albus Protocol and the broader PointGroup portfolio — Ray built with a consistent philosophy: Prioritize infrastructure over hype, compliance over shortcuts and long-term sustainability over speculation. The systems he helped design continue to operate today across staking, validator infrastructure and tokenized asset markets.

We are deeply grateful to Alexander Ray for the partnership and the work we shared within the CTDG initiative on the Solana track. This partnership remains an important part of his professional legacy.

Alexander Ray is remembered as a builder who worked where Web3 is hardest, at the intersection of decentralization, regulation and real financial infrastructure. His legacy lives on in the live protocols, staking systems and compliance rails that continue to support users and institutions across the blockchain economy.