Senate Banking Committee Advances Clarity Act
Meredith Pitkoff of Stork Labs | Sky Ecosystem Backs Stablecoin Yield Startup Osero
Good Morning
The Senate Banking Committee's 15-9 vote to advance the Clarity Act landed as a headline win for crypto, but the bill that reaches the Senate floor will carry the scars of last-minute dealmaking, unresolved ethics provisions, and a DeFi concession that left non-custodial developers without the protections they came for.
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In Today's Email:
What Matters: Senate Banking Committee Advances Clarity Act π
Founders Highlight: Meredith Pitkoff of Stork Labs π§ββοΈ
Deal Flows: Sky Ecosystem Backs Stablecoin Yield Startup Osero π°οΈ
Narratives: Legislative Tailwind
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WHAT MATTERS
Senate Banking Committee Advances Clarity Act
State of play: The Senate Banking Committee voted 15-9 to advance the Clarity Act , with two Democrats crossing the aisle, though unresolved ethics provisions and a last-minute DeFi concession leave the bill far from finished.
The committee advanced its crypto market structure bill with unexpected bipartisan support, as Sens. Gallego and Alsobrooks voted yes contingent on ethics language being resolved.
Gallego warned he will vote no on the Senate floor if provisions barring federal officials and their families from certain digital asset transactions are not included.
A last-minute concession to secure Democratic votes removed noncustodial developer protections from Section 301, drawing pushback from the DeFi Education Fund.
The Senate Banking and Agriculture Committee versions must still be reconciled before a full Senate floor vote.
Bank trade groups including the American Bankers Association backed the bill as a starting point but pushed for tighter restrictions on stablecoin rewards, citing deposit flight risk.
Why it matters: Clarity Act passage resolves the CFTC/SEC standoff and gives crypto its first durable legal foundation.
Our take: Bipartisan progress, but stripping noncustodial developer protections to win two votes is exactly the kind of trade the industry ends up litigating. Ethics language is still the live wire.
For builders and investors: Watch Section 301 closely. Non-custodial developers still face money transmitter risk, and CFTC clarity is the unlock for compliant derivatives.
BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT
Meredith Pitkoff of Stork Labs
Previous background: Before Stork, Meredith built her career across data infrastructure and product. She started at LiveRamp as a Solutions Architect, then moved into product roles at Wove and Samba TV, the latter acquiring Wove during her tenure.
Most recently she served as Chief of Staff and Partnerships at SafeGraph.
The big idea: Meredith and Stork Labsβ big idea is to demolish the costly "walled gardens" of traditional blockchain oracles by introducing an ultra-fast, cheap, and open ecosystem where data is pulled on-demand rather than pushed indiscriminately.
Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals π
INSIGHTS
Chainlink Gains $2.5B TVL After LayerZero Exodus
The Kelp DAO exploit has triggered a broad migration away from LayerZero, with Kraken becoming the latest to deprecate its cross-chain infrastructure in favor of Chainlink CCIP as the $292M attack continues to reshape interoperability market share.
Kraken is migrating its kBTC product (~$333M TVL) to Chainlink CCIP, citing 16 independent node operators and ISO 27001 certification.
Kraken joins Kelp DAO, Solv Protocol, and Re, which together represent $2.57B in TVL migrated to Chainlink.
The Kelp DAO exploit, attributed to Lazarus Group, targeted a single-verifier configuration that was the default for 47% of LayerZero-powered apps.
LayerZero initially deflected blame before accepting partial responsibility and discontinuing support for 1/1 DVN configurations.
Chainlink reports over $3B in TVL inflows in recent weeks, including migrations from LayerZero and Tydro on Kraken's Ink blockchain.
DEAL FLOWS
Sky Ecosystem Backs Stablecoin Yield Startup Osero
Deal flows slowed down this week - we saw $150M+ in deals πΌ
Sky Ecosystem led a $13.5M round for Osero , a stablecoin yield infrastructure startup incubated by Stablewatch, as MakerDAO's successor doubles down on expanding distribution of its USDS and sUSDS products beyond its native ecosystem.
Plasma co-led the round, with participation from RedStone, Joe Flanagan, and Lorenzo Romagnoli, structured entirely as a SAFT with no board seats granted.
$10M of the $13.5M raised is reserved as a capital buffer to protect users and Sky Protocol from potential losses, underwritten by a Basel III-inspired risk framework.
Osero is building three products: Earn for platform integrations, App for retail and institutional users, and Foundry for tokenized structured products.
The startup operates as a Sky distribution agent, targeting wallets, neobanks, custodians, and exchanges that want stablecoin yield without managing underlying assets.
Revenue comes from two streams: a share on USDS and sUSDS balances distributed through integrations, and the spread between institutional yield and the Sky Base Rate.
Deal flows in the past week:
Charms, $1.5M Pre-Seed Round
Boundary, $2M Pre-Seed Round
Osero, $13.5M Seed Round
Fortune Protocol, Undisclosed $ Seed Round
Elliptic, $120M Series D Round
Arc Blockchain, $222M Private Round
Antier Solutions, $3M Unknown Round
Sportix, $3.2M Unknown Round
Augustus, $40M Unknown Round
WooshPay, Undisclosed $ Unknown Round
AWARP, Undisclosed $ Unknown Round
QUICK BITES
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