2 hours ago
The crypto concern steadfast and the DeFi Education Fund person projected an attack to exempting broker registration for tech offering gateways to DeFi activity.
Aug 13, 2025, 9:00 a.m.
Over its years of shepherding its portfolio firms done regulatory waters successful the U.S., Andresseen Horowitz (a16z) has made respective proposals to support securities laws disconnected of crypto activity, and a caller petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking specified extortion for decentralized concern (DeFi) websites and mobile applications.
The request, sent successful practice with the DeFi Education Fund connected Wednesday, follows a surge successful DeFi enactment from the White House and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, encouraging this country of the crypto assemblage to determination guardant without onerous regulatory headwinds. President Donald Trump's medication produced a caller crypto study that included recommendations to "provide alleviation for definite DeFi work providers" from broker-dealer registration rules.
"The guiding rule of the harmless harbor is that lone those apps which bash not engender the risks that the Exchange Act’s broker-dealer regulatory authorities was designed to code should beryllium eligible; successful specified cases, registration arsenic a broker nether the Exchange Act is unwarranted and inappropriate," according to the proposal.
In March, a16z sent a lengthy missive to the SEC's Crypto Task Force outlining the firm's preferences for harmless harbors for web tokens and airdrops, and another proposal asked for an exempt abstraction for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The Andreessen Horowitz crypto limb besides has invested successful DeFi companies, including Uniswap and Maker.
Trump's SEC chief, Atkins, has promised to statesman taking crypto-friendly actions, adjacent successful the lack of the long-awaited legislature authorities to afloat found integer assets regulations successful the U.S. — an effort inactive underway successful the Senate, pursuing a caller House ballot to o.k. specified a bill. Atkins said his bureau is starting "Project Crypto" to get its initiatives underway.
Read More: A16z Crypto Leads $15M Seed Round Into Decentralized AI Data Layer Poseidon
Jesse Hamilton
Jesse Hamilton is CoinDesk's lawman managing exertion connected the Global Policy and Regulation team, based successful Washington, D.C. Before joining CoinDesk successful 2022, helium worked for much than a decennary covering Wall Street regularisation astatine Bloomberg News and Businessweek, penning astir the aboriginal whisperings among national agencies trying to determine what to bash astir crypto. He’s won respective nationalist honors successful his reporting career, including from his clip arsenic a warfare analogous successful Iraq and arsenic a constabulary newsman for newspapers. Jesse is simply a postgraduate of Western Washington University, wherever helium studied journalism and history. He has nary crypto holdings.
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