U.S. SEC Chairman "gives the green light," is DeFi Summer about to make a comeback?

SEC Chairman
2025-06-10 20:21:44
Collection
Overview of the speech by SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins at the "DeFi and the American Spirit" roundtable held in Washington, D.C.

Compiled by: Rhythm BlockBeats

Original text: Remarks at the Crypto Task Force Roundtable on Decentralized Finance

Editor's note: On June 10, the DeFi Education Fund disclosed that the SEC's crypto task force held a roundtable on "DeFi and the American Spirit." At the beginning of the roundtable, SEC Chair Atkins discussed how decentralized finance (DeFi) aligns with American values: "Economic freedom, private property rights, and innovation are the core genes of the decentralized finance (DeFi) movement." Additionally, Chair Atkins emphasized that developers of neutral tools should not be held liable for the actions of third parties.

Thank you all, good afternoon. I am very honored to be here with you today. First, I want to thank Commissioner Peirce and the special cryptocurrency task force for organizing this event, and I also appreciate the participation of Commissioners Crenshaw and Uyeda. Of course, I am very grateful to all the guests at the roundtable and to our host, Troy Parades, for voluntarily dedicating your time and expertise to support our work.

The theme of today's roundtable is "DeFi and the American Spirit." This is an apt title because the core American values of economic freedom, private property rights, and innovation are deeply embedded in the DNA of the decentralized finance movement. As a creative disruptive technology, blockchain is driving a fundamental reconstruction of how we transfer and secure intellectual and economic property rights. Through a shared database enabled by blockchain, users can own digital property known as crypto assets without relying on intermediaries or centralized methods, incentivizing participants to follow network rules to maintain the integrity of the database, exemplifying a free market system; users pay fees based on supply and demand, allowing transactions to be included in "blocks" with limited storage capacity.

The previous administration's litigation and regulatory threats implied that staking service providers might be involved in securities trading, which effectively hindered American citizens' participation in market systems. The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance should not include voluntary participation in proof-of-work or proof-of-stake networks as miners, validators, or staking service providers under federal securities law. Regulatory guidance alone has not formed legally binding rules. The SEC urgently needs to advance the legislative process based on congressional authorization.

Private property self-custody means that individuals have the right to manage and dispose of their legally owned property without external interference. As a cornerstone of American founding principles, it should not disappear due to internet access. We advocate for greater flexibility and autonomy for market participants, especially when intermediaries impose unnecessary transaction costs or restrict users' participation in staking and other on-chain activities.

The previous administration claimed through regulatory actions that developers of on-chain technologies such as self-custody digital wallets might engage in securities brokerage activities, which stifled technological innovation in the relevant fields. It is clearly unreasonable for engineers to be bound by federal securities regulations merely for releasing such software code. This regulatory logic has been explicitly rejected in Risley v. Universal Navigation Inc. (2025 WL 615185): engineers should not be held accountable under securities laws simply for releasing software code, as there is no legal basis for such accountability. The core principle established in the ruling states—"Just as developers of autonomous driving systems should not be held liable for third-party traffic violations or bank robberies, technology tool providers should not be held jointly liable for the misuse of on-chain tools by others. The accountable parties under securities law should be those who actually control user assets and engage in specific violations, not the underlying technology developers."

Currently, many entrepreneurs are focused on developing autonomous software applications that do not require management by operators. Such self-executing code features: universal accessibility, no central controlling party, and support for private peer-to-peer transactions—though seemingly science fiction, blockchain technology is making such intermediary-free new software a reality. I firmly advocate that we should not allow regulatory frameworks established a century ago to hinder technological innovations that could disrupt and, more importantly, substantially improve and upgrade existing financial intermediary models. We cannot refuse to move forward out of fear of the future.

Stress tests have validated that such on-chain autonomous systems exhibit structural resilience. During recent market turmoil, while centralized platforms frequently collapsed, most on-chain systems continued to operate strictly according to open-source protocol design. Empirical analysis from the S&P Global Ratings report (https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/pdf-articles/230622-crypto-cefi-and-defi-must-strike-a-balance-to-thrive-101578824.) confirmed that the collapse of several centralized finance (CeFi) institutions in 2022 exposed their risk management deficiencies, governance shortcomings, and inter-institutional contagion risks, while in stark contrast, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols overall withstood the shocks, with the major collateral lending platforms' liquidation ratios approaching zero and trading volumes on decentralized exchanges continuing to grow.

The current securities regulatory framework is built on the premise of regulating issuers and intermediaries (including broker-dealers, investment advisors, exchanges, clearing agencies, etc.). The rule-makers at that time may not have foreseen the emergence of self-executing code or scenarios where such entities could be replaced. Therefore, I have instructed the committee staff to explore whether further guidance or rules should be issued, whether supplementary regulatory guidance or amendments to existing regulations are needed, so that registered entities can trade with these on-chain systems in compliance with the law.

I also recognize the potential for issuers and intermediaries to use on-chain systems to eliminate economic friction, enhance capital efficiency, develop new financial products, and improve liquidity. Existing securities regulations already consider the use of new technologies, but I have asked the staff to assess whether the committee rules need to be amended to provide more targeted adaptive adjustments for registered entities operating on-chain financial systems.

During the SEC and its staff's development of specialized rules for on-chain financial markets, I have directed the working team to explore establishing a "conditional exemption mechanism" (also known as an "innovation exemption pathway") to enable both registered and unregistered entities to accelerate the launch of on-chain financial products and services. This exemption mechanism encourages developers, entrepreneurs, and relevant institutions to develop on-chain technology in the U.S. by setting compliance innovation conditions, thereby advancing President Trump's vision of "making the U.S. a global hub for crypto assets"

Thank you all for listening, and I look forward to the upcoming discussion.

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