{"id":41901,"date":"2025-08-13T09:17:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T09:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=41901"},"modified":"2025-08-13T09:17:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T09:17:28","slug":"a16z-defi-group-pitch-u-s-sec-on-safe-harbor-for-defi-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=41901","title":{"rendered":"A16z, DeFi Group Pitch U.S. SEC on Safe Harbor For DeFi Apps"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Over its years of shepherding its portfolio firms through regulatory waters in the U.S., Andresseen Horowitz (a16z) has made several proposals to keep securities laws off of crypto activity, and a new petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking such protection for decentralized finance (DeFi) websites and mobile applications.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The request, sent in cooperation with the DeFi Education Fund on Wednesday, follows a surge in DeFi support from the White House and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, encouraging this corner of the crypto sector to move forward without onerous regulatory headwinds. President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration produced a recent crypto report that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Digital-Assets-Report-EO14178.pdf\">included recommendations<\/a> to &#8220;provide relief for certain DeFi service providers&#8221; from broker-dealer registration rules.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The guiding principle of the safe harbor is that only those apps which do not engender the risks that the Exchange Act\u2019s broker-dealer regulatory regime was designed to address should be eligible; in such cases, registration as a broker under the Exchange Act is unwarranted and inappropriate,&#8221; according to the proposal.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>In March, a16z sent a <a href=\"https:\/\/api.a16zcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/a16z-Crypto-SEC-RFI-Questions-1-through-6-March-13-2025.pdf\">lengthy letter to the SEC&#8217;s Crypto Task Force<\/a> outlining the firm&#8217;s preferences for safe harbors for network tokens and airdrops, and <a href=\"https:\/\/api.a16zcrypto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/a16z-Safe-Harbor-Proposal-Collectible-Tokens-NFTs.pdf\">another proposal<\/a> asked for an exempt space for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The Andreessen Horowitz crypto arm also has invested in DeFi companies, including Uniswap and Maker.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Trump&#8217;s SEC chief, Atkins, has promised to begin taking crypto-friendly actions, even in the absence of the long-awaited congressional legislation to fully establish digital assets regulations in the U.S. \u2014 an effort still underway in the Senate, following a recent House vote to approve such a bill. Atkins said his agency is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/policy\/2025\/07\/31\/u-s-sec-chairman-atkins-says-agency-pursuing-project-crypto-to-elevate-industry\">starting &#8220;Project Crypto&#8221;<\/a> to get its initiatives underway.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/07\/22\/a16z-crypto-leads-usd15m-seed-round-into-decentralized-ai-data-layer-poseidon\">A16z Crypto Leads $15M Seed Round Into Decentralized AI Data Layer Poseidon<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over its years of shepherding its portfolio firms through regulatory waters in the U.S., Andresseen Horowitz (a16z) has made several proposals to keep securities laws off of crypto activity, and a new petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking such protection for decentralized finance (DeFi) websites and mobile applications. The request, sent in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-41901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}