Crypto Advocacy Groups Submit Joint Letter to SEC Requesting Formal DeFi Rulemaking

Gate News message, April 24 — The DeFi Education Fund and other crypto advocacy organizations, including the Chamber of Digital Commerce, submitted a joint letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 24, requesting the agency to launch a formal DeFi rulemaking process based on its recent guidance. The SEC's Division of Market and Trading previously clarified that certain software user interfaces used for trading cryptocurrencies do not require registration as broker-dealers.

The letter urges the SEC to codify these principles through a notice-and-comment rulemaking or advisory release, establishing an objective and clear framework that defines which activities fall under the "broker-dealer" definition while explicitly excluding validators, API and RPC providers, oracle services, and cloud infrastructure providers. The signatories seek long-term legal certainty for developers and wish to move beyond temporary guidance.

Under current SEC Chair Paul Atkins, the agency has adopted a more open and innovation-friendly stance toward digital assets, contrasting sharply with the approach of his predecessor. Industry participants have played an increasingly prominent role in the regulatory process.