Mara Schmiedt: The Woman Behind Institutional Crypto Staking Reform

• Mara Schmiedt helped build an institutional staking framework blending security, transparency, and real-world reliability.
• As CEO of Alluvial, she actively leads development, partners with giants, and pushes for Ethereum staking adoption.

Mara Schmiedt didn’t grow up in the crypto community cheering on X or jumping on NFT bandwagons. She’s more of a sit-in, quietly listening, and then asking a question that makes the room go silent.

Her academic background at the London School of Economics gave her a keen eye for traditional finance, but somehow her journey ended up in the world of Ethereum staking and liquid staking infrastructure, which, frankly, sounds like a topic that would make a layperson wince.

But Mara didn’t take the fast track. She had stints at PwC and JP Morgan, two big names in finance. But behind the steady paycheck and comfortable office, there was a curiosity that never waned. She then chose to enter the Web3 realm through ConsenSys, where she was involved in the development of Ethereum 2.0 and its supporting tools like Codefi.

Slowly, she delved into the world of validation, staking, and all sorts of things that might only interest those who think “validator uptime” is a topic worth talking about over lunch. But it was from here that Mara began to build her reputation.

Building Trustworthy Staking for Institutions, Not Just Individuals

After Coinbase acquired Bison Trails, Mara took on the role of head of sales for Coinbase Cloud, taking staking more seriously for institutions. She understood something that often gets overlooked: staking can’t just be easy for individuals, it also has to be trustworthy for institutions holding trillions of dollars.

On the flip side, many institutions are wary of a staking approach that’s too loose. That’s where Alluvial came in. Together with Liquid Collective, Mara designed a staking framework that combines compliance, transparency, and ease of use. She’s not just a CEO watching growth charts.

She helped build the architecture, selecting partners like Coinbase and Kraken, ensuring that validators are not only fast, but also subject to responsible operational and legal standards.

Furthermore, she’s not the type to rest on her laurels. Mara has been writing reports like “The Internet Bond” and dissecting Ethereum network changes like the Dencun upgrade—which she says will open the way for more institutions to get on Ethereum, without sacrificing security or control.

Imagine being a pension fund manager tasked with finding returns from crypto, but can’t afford to lose money because a single node fails to sync. That’s the person Mara built her system for.

Mara Schmiedt Builds Where Others Only Talk

In the past, she’s even taken part in public discussions on The Block and the Epicenter Podcast, discussing the expansion of institutional staking and how liquidity can coexist with compliance. These aren’t conversations that can be spiced up with memes or hype jargon. But Mara Schmiedt shines in those spaces, where data, logic, and clarity are worth far more than followers.

Now, as an active investor in over 15 blockchain projects and a board member of Obol Labs, Mara has shown that she doesn’t just talk the talk—she lives it. She wants to create a staking ecosystem that no longer needs to be dismissed as “still in development,” but can become a true financial infrastructure.

Will the world remember her name like it does other big crypto founders? Probably not. But for those who know the intricacies of building trust in a decentralized system, Mara Schmiedt is already well-known as the person who laid the foundation with her own hands.