Summer is almost here! It’s a brutal 93 degrees in NJ right now. Oof.

Anyway, here’s the latest in the world of Deep Ventures:

• Portfolio company highlights from Panther Protocol, Xitadel, and Enclave

• Industry insights - Clarity Act advances, DeFi hacks galore, and HYPE + Coinbase/Circle

Let’s go!

Portfolio Highlights

Panther Protocol is live! (syndicate portco)

Panther Protocol is building confidential on-chain DeFi infrastructure that allows for private transactions across multiple chains.

And after years of research, engineering, and community collaboration, Panther Protocol is now live on Polygon!

The initial deployment includes a compliance-enabled zone powered by credentials issued by independent providers such as AMLBot via PureFi tooling.

Participants present zero-knowledge attestations on-chain, allowing the protocol to verify eligibility without exposing personal data or transferring identity information.

This is a huge step towards compliant, onchain privacy compatible with institutional participation!

Read more on the Panther blog.

Xitadel completes full LTT lifecycle (fund portco)

Xitadel is a DeFi protocol that helps DAOs and foundations leverage their token treasuries to acquire stablecoin capital through overcollateralized debt.

And their first full Liquid Treasury Token (LTT) lifecycle has been completed!

FlashTrade, Xitadel’s first partner, completed their loan repayment into the funding vault, and LTT holders were able to burn their LTT to redeem principal + interest in USDC.

Here are the numbers:

• Total $ lent: $330,000

• Total # of LTT swaps: 68,165

• Trading LTT trading volume: $1,672,131

All stages of the LTT lifecycle - Funding, Activation, Maturity, and Redemption - have now been completed.

And the concept of Web3 debt financing has now been validated!

Enclave rebrands to Interfold (syndicate portco)

Enclave is a protocol for verifiable, private compute that allows developers to run programs on encrypted data from multiple sources without exposing inputs or relying on trusted hardware.

And they’ve just rebranded to The Interfold!

They continued working on the Aragon CRISP governance demo flow and real-world exploration of private voting and secret ballots.

They are making progress on securing formal partnerships with Zcash, Uniswap, Status App, and many others.

Along with Panther, privacy is making a huge comeback!

Interested in investing with us? We’ve launched Deep Ventures Fund 1 and we’d love for you to be involved. Please take a look at our deck, ping me at [email protected], and schedule a chat!

Industry Insights

US Senate Banking Committee advances Clarity Act

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (“Clarity Act”) last week on a 15–9 vote, marking the first time a comprehensive crypto market structure bill has cleared this powerful committee.

Support came from all Republicans plus a small number of Democrats. The move represents a meaningful procedural step toward establishing federal “rules of the road” for digital assets, rather than governing the space primarily through enforcement.

The Clarity Act aims to delineate jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC and create clearer regulatory standards for crypto trading venues and intermediaries, with the stated goal of reducing the current gray area for developers, entrepreneurs, and institutional investors.

The bill still faces a complex path to passage, but this is a significant milestone and proof that crypto market structure is a high priority in Washington.

Read more here.

DeFi protocols hacked for $770M in so far in 2026

DeFi has already seen ~$770M dollars lost to hacks and exploits through April 2026. April alone accounted for over $620M dollars drained across more than a dozen incidents, making it the worst month on record for crypto hacks.

The damage is concentrated in a handful of large‑scale failures. KelpDAO’s bridge exploit (~$292M) and Drift Protocol’s exploit on Solana (~$280M) together represent the majority of year‑to‑date DeFi losses, with additional tens of millions scattered across smaller protocol incidents.

It's no longer smart contracts that are getting hacked. Single points of failure are being exploited, signing infrastructure and design is weak, and people are getting socially engineered.

Every new chain and bridge integration expands the attack surface.

Circuit breakers should be integrated. Multi-party verification should be enforced. Deepfake detection measures should be installed.

This is an existential threat to DeFi and the crypto industry as a whole. If hacks continue to happen, we will lose all trust from both retail and institutions. Then it's game over.

Yes, these situations stink, but crypto will get stronger from it.

Hyperliquid partners with Coinbase and Circle on USDC

Coinbase and Circle have struck a major deal with Hyperliquid, the fast‑growing on‑chain perps exchange, to make USDC the core collateral and quote asset on the platform. Coinbase will manage USDC treasury deployment under Hyperliquid’s Aligned Quote Asset framework, while Circle provides native mint/redeem rails.

As part of this shift, Hyperliquid’s native stablecoin USDH, developed by Native Markets, will be gradually sunset. USDH remains fully backed, and users can swap USDH to USDC or redeem for fiat without fees.

For Hyperliquid, this brings blue‑chip stablecoin infrastructure and a marquee US exchange as a public partner, likely leading to deeper liquidity and increased comfort from institutions. For Coinbase and Circle, it embeds USDC into the leading perp DEX and gives them direct economic upside via reserve‑yield sharing and HYPE exposure.

Massive deal!

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this edition of the DV monthly newsletter!

Hit me up at [email protected] or @mikewchan on Telegram with your thoughts about the newsletter, what’s happening in crypto, or anything else!

Talk soon!