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{"actor":"system:backfill","investigation_id":"549b9d58-8fea-4548-9bd7-a12589f9fcf5","kind":"publish","page_slug":"hylo","published_at":"2026-11-05T20:23:26.266Z","sequence_num":1,"snapshot":{"content_type":"investigation","entity_name":"Hylo","sections":[{"content":"Hylo is a decentralized finance protocol on Solana that operates a dual-token design. Users deposit liquid staking tokens (primarily Jito SOL) to mint either hyUSD, a stablecoin, or xSOL, a leveraged token providing amplified exposure to SOL price movements. The two tokens share a single collateral pool, and their combined value is designed to track the pool's total value locked. The protocol uses tiered 'stability mode' mechanics that convert hyUSD held in a stability pool into xSOL (and vice versa) to defend the collateral ratio during price swings; different secondary sources describe somewhat different threshold percentages for these tiers, indicating some inconsistency in public explanations of the mechanism across versions. In July 2026, Hylo shipped a V2 upgrade including eHYUSD, a delta-neutral, yield-bearing stablecoin that replaced an earlier variant (sHYUSD).","heading":"Protocol Overview and Mechanism","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo: Enhancing Capital Efficiency of LSTs on Solana","type":"research","url":"https://donoba.substack.com/p/hylo-enhancing-capital-efficiency"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo xSOL: No Liquidation, No Funding - But What Are the Real Costs?","type":"research","url":"https://defillama.com/research/spotlight/hylo-xsol-no-liquidation-no-funding-but-what-are-the-real-costs"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo project page","type":"other","url":"https://solanacompass.com/projects/hylo_so"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo Launches eHYUSD, a Delta-Neutral Stablecoin That Earns Yield From Every Leveraged Token","type":"news_article","url":"https://solanacompass.com/news/hylo-launches-ehyusd-a-delta-neutral-stablecoin-that-earns-yield-from-every-leveraged-token"}]},{"content":"Hylo reportedly raised approximately $1.5 million in a seed funding round around August 2025, with participation reported from investors including Solana Ventures and Robot Ventures. A separate $1 million strategic round led by Solana Ventures, with Colosseum also participating, was reported to have closed in October 2026. These figures come from crypto-industry fundraising trackers and should be treated as provisional pending confirmation from Hylo's own disclosures or the investors involved.","heading":"Funding and Backers","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo raises $1.5M in seed round","type":"news_article","url":"https://finder.techleap.nl/news/feed/hylo-raises-1-5m-in-seed-round"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo raises $1M in strategic round led by Solana Ventures","type":"news_article","url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/hylo-raises-1m-solana-ventures/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo raised $1.5M in a seed funding round","type":"other","url":"https://crypto-fundraising.info/blog/hylo-raised-1-5m-in-a-seed-funding-round/"}]},{"content":"A security assessment of Hylo's exchange and stability pool programs, produced by Accretion Labs and dated December 2025, is publicly hosted by the project. The summary available indicates a verified build match for the exchange program and references a fix applied in a later commit for an issue identified in the stability pool. The full findings list, severity ratings, and scope of this audit were not fully retrievable from available sources, so the overall audit coverage and any unresolved findings cannot be independently confirmed. No reports of a hack, exploit, or loss of user funds affecting Hylo were found in available sources.","heading":"Security Audits","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Accretion-Hylo audit report (PDF)","type":"research","url":"https://hylo-audits.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Accretion-Hylo-Dec2025.pdf"}]},{"content":"Secondary sources report that hyUSD's collateral ratio fell during volatile market conditions, including an episode around October 2025 and a further episode reported in early 2026, triggering the protocol's tiered stability mechanisms and, according to one aggregator, a temporary pause of hyUSD minting. These sources describe the protocol's stability pool absorbing the stress and the ratio subsequently recovering, with hyUSD reportedly maintaining its peg throughout. Independent confirmation of these episodes beyond aggregator and newsletter coverage was not found, and the precise collateral-ratio thresholds differ between sources, so these claims carry low-to-medium confidence. As with any collateralized stablecoin backed by a volatile asset, a severe and sustained drop in SOL's price is a structural depeg risk inherent to the design, as noted by analytics providers.","heading":"Stability Record and Depeg Risk","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo stability pool coverage","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.kucoin.com/news/insight/SOL/68f0b3d4c24e2100077c9b15"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo USD (hyUSD) asset page","type":"research","url":"https://defillama.com/rwa/asset/hyusd"}]},{"content":"Public sources identify a Hylo co-founder and CEO using the name or handle \"Plish,\" featured in a Solana Foundation podcast episode; the available sources do not provide this person's full legal identity. Hylo is described in that source as having three co-founders and one founding engineer, but full biographical details for the team were not found in verifiable sources. A claim, originating from the requester's context rather than from independent reporting, that Hylo is connected to an entity called \"Royal Exchange\" and that a named or unnamed individual will present a 'Founder Journey: Hylo, Royal Exchange' talk at Solana Breakpoint 2026, could not be corroborated through web search; no link between Hylo and any entity named Royal Exchange was found. This claim is noted here as unverified and should not be read as a finding about any individual's conduct.","heading":"Leadership and Unverified Claims","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Building the Safest DeFi Protocol on Solana (Plish, co-founder & CEO of Hylo)","type":"other","url":"https://solana.com/podcasts/the-index/episodes/19029235-building-the-safest-defi-protocol-on-solana-plish-co-founder-ceo-of-hylo"}]}],"sources_used":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo: Enhancing Capital Efficiency of LSTs on Solana","type":"research","url":"https://donoba.substack.com/p/hylo-enhancing-capital-efficiency"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo xSOL: No Liquidation, No Funding - But What Are the Real Costs?","type":"research","url":"https://defillama.com/research/spotlight/hylo-xsol-no-liquidation-no-funding-but-what-are-the-real-costs"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo project page","type":"other","url":"https://solanacompass.com/projects/hylo_so"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo Launches eHYUSD, a Delta-Neutral Stablecoin That Earns Yield From Every Leveraged Token","type":"news_article","url":"https://solanacompass.com/news/hylo-launches-ehyusd-a-delta-neutral-stablecoin-that-earns-yield-from-every-leveraged-token"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo raises $1.5M in seed round","type":"news_article","url":"https://finder.techleap.nl/news/feed/hylo-raises-1-5m-in-seed-round"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo raises $1M in strategic round led by Solana Ventures","type":"news_article","url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/hylo-raises-1m-solana-ventures/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo raised $1.5M in a seed funding round","type":"other","url":"https://crypto-fundraising.info/blog/hylo-raised-1-5m-in-a-seed-funding-round/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Accretion-Hylo audit report (PDF)","type":"research","url":"https://hylo-audits.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Accretion-Hylo-Dec2025.pdf"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo stability pool coverage","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.kucoin.com/news/insight/SOL/68f0b3d4c24e2100077c9b15"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Hylo USD (hyUSD) asset page","type":"research","url":"https://defillama.com/rwa/asset/hyusd"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Building the Safest DeFi Protocol on Solana (Plish, co-founder & CEO of Hylo)","type":"other","url":"https://solana.com/podcasts/the-index/episodes/19029235-building-the-safest-defi-protocol-on-solana-plish-co-founder-ceo-of-hylo"}],"summary":"Hylo is a Solana-based DeFi protocol, launched around August 2025, that mints a liquid-staking-backed stablecoin (hyUSD) and a leveraged token (xSOL) from a shared collateral pool, with a V2 upgrade introducing a yield-bearing variant (eHYUSD). No regulatory actions, lawsuits, hacks, or fraud allegations against Hylo were found in available sources as of this writing. A requester's claim linking Hylo to an entity called \"Royal Exchange\" and a scheduled Solana Breakpoint 2026 speaking slot could not be independently verified and is not reflected as a finding here.","timeline":[{"date":"2025-08","event":"Hylo reportedly launched on Solana and closed a seed funding round of approximately $1.5 million.","source":"Techleap / crypto-fundraising.info","source_url":"https://finder.techleap.nl/news/feed/hylo-raises-1-5m-in-seed-round"},{"date":"2025-10","event":"Hylo's hyUSD collateral ratio reportedly declined during a broader market drop, triggering stability-mode mechanics; the protocol reportedly maintained its peg.","source":"Solana Compass / KuCoin","source_url":"https://www.kucoin.com/news/insight/SOL/68f0b3d4c24e2100077c9b15"},{"date":"2025-12","date_evidence":"Accretion-Hylo-Dec2025.pdf (audit report dated/named for December 2025)","date_original":"2025-12-08","event":"Accretion Labs published a security assessment of Hylo's exchange and stability pool programs.","source":"Accretion Labs audit report","source_url":"https://hylo-audits.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/Accretion-Hylo-Dec2025.pdf"},{"date":"2026-07","date_evidence":"Hylo shipped eHYUSD on July 13 as part of its V2 upgrade","date_original":"2026-07-13","event":"Hylo launched eHYUSD, a delta-neutral yield-bearing stablecoin, as part of a V2 protocol upgrade.","source":"Solana Compass","source_url":"https://solanacompass.com/news/hylo-launches-ehyusd-a-delta-neutral-stablecoin-that-earns-yield-from-every-leveraged-token"},{"date":"2026-10-20","date_evidence":"hylo strategic 2026 10 20","event":"Hylo reportedly closed a $1 million strategic funding round led by Solana Ventures, with Colosseum also participating.","source":"Cryptobriefing","source_url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/hylo-raises-1m-solana-ventures/"}]},"v":1}