The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission published remarks by Commissioner Hester M. Peirce for the Crypto Task Force’s roundtable on decentralized finance, setting out a view that the SEC should not regulate people who merely write and publish DeFi software protocols while maintaining that the agency may have a role where securities-related financial services are being provided. Peirce framed code as protected speech under the First Amendment and said the SEC has no authority to demand pre-publication approval even where code could be used to exchange securities. She drew a line between publishing open-source protocols and conduct such as operating, administering, or maintaining a platform that provides access to the code, taking custody of client assets, or making execution decisions for clients, in which case the coder or platform could be subject to regulation if the activity relates to securities. The remarks also cautioned that centralized firms using DeFi protocols do not get a regulatory pass and that entities should not be able to evade regulation by adopting a “DeFi” label, with SEC efforts better directed at financial service providers rather than peer-to-peer use of open protocols. The speech closed the Crypto Task Force’s “Spring Sprint” roundtable series, which also covered security status, trading, tokenization, and custody, and indicated that the Task Force intends to continue its work on regulatory clarity based on roundtable input.

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