Veil Founder Announces Protocol Shutdown, Deposits Halted Immediately

ChainCatcher report: On November 9, Apex, founder of the zk privacy protocol Veil, announced that the team has decided to shut down Veil. Deposits will cease immediately; the frontend and relays will remain operational until December 21, 2026, after which withdrawals will still be possible via command-line tools. Apex stated that, after two years of development, the privacy solution they aimed to build failed to scale. Although the protocol experienced periods of strong usage, it was not sustained. Veil’s privacy strength depends on usage volume—declining usage weakens privacy. Over the past several months, the protocol has consistently failed to deliver its core value proposition. Public records show that Veil is a zero-knowledge privacy protocol backed by Coinbase Ventures. Apex noted that, despite not solving the original problem, he still considers privacy the most challenging issue in the crypto industry to date, and thanked the Base and Coinbase teams, as well as all holders, users, and supporters of Veil, for their assistance over the past two years. The shutdown also means termination of support for the VEIL token effective immediately, including staking rewards and liquidity provider incentives; tokens held in the treasury will be burned. Apex stated he will not leave the industry and remains bullish on cryptocurrency, Ethereum, and Base, though his next project’s specific direction has not yet been determined. He emphasized that Veil consumed all his focus, and any future project will require an equivalent level of conviction to move forward.