Industry response to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s DeFi Roundtable has been overwhelmingly positive.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is onboard with decentralized finance (DeFi).
That was made very clear at the SEC’s DeFi roundtable on June 9. Titled “DeFi and the American Spirit,” the roundtable featured promising comments from the new SEC Chairman, Paul Atkins.
Speaking of the need for keeping control of one’s own assets, Atkins said: “The right to have self-custody of one’s private property is a foundational American value that should not disappear when one logs onto the internet.”
He also announced that while the SEC works on full rules of the road, he had instructed the SEC staff “to consider a conditional exemptive relief framework or ‘innovation exemption’ that would expeditiously allow registrants and non-registrants to bring on-chain products and services to market.”
The two comments struck a nerve.
“The SEC roundtable made one thing clear: DeFi is no longer being dismissed, it’s being dissected,” Martin de Rijke, Head of Growth at Maple Finance, told The Defiant in an email. “Commissioner Atkins’ remarks reflected a shift toward trying to understand how decentralized systems actually function, especially around risk, control, and governance. That’s a big change from the past, where the focus was mostly on how DeFi broke the rules.
The SEC is engaged in a broad review of its crypto policies in general, with Atkins calling for a new, more open and inviting environment and abandoning its enforcement-first approach.
Made in America
Chuck Zhang, CFO of PayFi protocol PolyFlow, predicts that a friendly regulatory outlook will have a great impact on DeFi markets.
“Clearer and collaborative regulatory guidelines… may spur the builders to comply without stifling innovation, and bolster investor confidence while dissuading capital liquidity from moving offshore,” Zhang said in an email.
The need to keep innovators and innovation in America was the key point for Joe Sticco, co-founder and CEO of Cryptex Finance.
“Commissioner Atkins’ remarks stood out for their rare clarity and conviction,” Sticco told the Defiant via email. “His acknowledgment that overregulation and uncertainty are actively pushing innovation offshore wasn’t just refreshing—it was urgent and necessary.
Sticco was also impressed by what he saw as Atkins framing regulators’ role as guides, not gatekeepers.
“That language matters,” he said. “It signals a willingness to align oversight with innovation, not in opposition to it.”
Citing “a tone of cautious optimism,” he added that the emphasis on the importance of American leadership in DeFi by a number of participants on both the industry and policy sides “more than anything, gives me hope.”
Joris Delanoue, co-CEO and co-founder at Fairmint, told The Defiant on a Zoom call that the winds are shifting.
“In the past, people were going offshore; they were trying to avoid any enforcement,” Delanoue said. “Now everyone is considering bringing things back to the U.S. “We’ve been asking for clarity for years, and finally the industry is getting it in the form of a playbook.”
A Seat at the Table
Charles St. Louis, CEO and founder of DELV, called the roundtable “a breath of fresh air” in an email.
“The tide is finally turning, and DeFi is getting its long-overdue seat at the table,” he said. “Chair Paul Atkins delivered the clearest pro-crypto message we’ve heard from Washington. He didn’t hedge: self-custody is a foundational American value, and DeFi deserves a path forward under modern, sensible rules.”
St. Louis also noted that Atkins clarified that mining, validating, and staking-as-a-service aren’t securities transactions, and “defended open-source developers, affirming that publishing staking code or wallet software is not brokerage activity.”
He called the proposed innovation exemption a potential “paradigm shifter.”
By providing legal clarity and space for DeFi builders to operate while a long-term framework is developed, St. Louis said Atkins was signaling “a willingness to write rules that let firms tap into DeFi rails, such as enabling onchain issuance and settlement and supporting compliant, self-custodial infrastructure.”
He added that the “market seemingly responded quickly, with DeFi tokens like AAVE, UNI, and SKY jumping 10+%.”
