SEC Announces Three DeFi Policies Sparking 12% Gains in Top Tokens

On June 9, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announced three significant DeFi policies that have sparked a wave of innovation and market enthusiasm. The policies focus on code neutrality, property rights, and an innovation sandbox framework, marking a shift from enforcement crackdowns to fostering innovation.

Atkins' speech at the “DeFi and American Spirit” roundtable introduced a new regulatory philosophy. He declared that code developers would not be held liable for third-party misuse of their open-source code, a stance that overturns previous SEC charges against developers like those of Tornado Cash. This policy aims to protect developers from legal repercussions stemming from smart contract bugs or user misconduct, thereby encouraging rapid experimentation and innovation in the DeFi space.

The second policy pillar involves the recognition of self-custody rights as an inalienable basic right for Americans. Atkins stated that this right should not disappear when assets move on-chain, legitimizing decentralized finance participation. This declaration benefits liquid staking sectors, which were previously labeled as “unregistered securities” by the SEC. Protocols like Lido (LDO) and Rocket Pool (RETH) now receive official endorsement, potentially accelerating on-chain staking services from platforms like Coinbase and Kraken. This opens channels for traditional financial institutions to enter the DeFi market.

The third policy introduces a “conditional exemption framework” that allows DeFi projects to rapidly launch innovative products while maintaining essential compliance standards. This regulatory sandbox model provides incubation space for real-world assets (RWA) and on-chain bonds, giving institutional investors controlled-risk participation paths. Traditional giants like JPMorgan and Société Générale have already shown interest in this trend, with JPMorgan deploying enterprise-grade bond trading platforms on Ethereum and Société Générale issuing a compliant stablecoin USDCV on Solana.

Following the policy announcements, the DeFi market experienced significant reactions. Blue-chip protocol tokens like AAVE and UNI saw average gains of over 12% in 24 hours, while emerging protocols like JITOSOL and ONDO followed with increases of over 5%. The Ethereum DeFi ecosystem's total value locked (TVL) added $18 billion in one week, marking the highest growth rate since the 2024 bull market began. Institutional positioning also accelerated, with BlackRock’s Ethereum spot ETF exceeding $30 billion in assets under management and Goldman Sachs’ on-chain treasury products raising $4.7 billion in their first week.

However, the market transformation extends beyond price volatility. Atkins’ new policies reconstruct DeFi’s competitive dimensions, with compliance products, technology arms races, and CeDeFi integration becoming new hotspots. On-chain KYC modules, RWA issuance protocols, and institutional DEXs are emerging as new areas of focus. Ethereum's sharding implementation, which allows for 2000 TPS processing capacity, attracts algorithmic stablecoins and derivatives protocols for large-scale migration. Coinbase's launch of compliant liquid staking services exemplifies the deep integration between traditional finance and on-chain protocols.

Despite the regulatory relaxation opening new opportunities, the industry must guard against several risks. The implementation details of the “innovation exemption” remain unpublished, which could lead to protocols crossing red lines due to misunderstandings about “conditional compliance.” Technical stress testing, such as MEV attacks and oracle data delays, continues to test the ecosystem's resilience. Additionally, geopolitical variables, such as the November US election results, could affect policy continuity, prompting some projects to initiate “regulatory arbitrage” structures for contingencies.

In conclusion, Atkins’ new policies recognize DeFi not as a replacement for traditional finance but as an evolution of human property systems and financial infrastructure. When code rights and property rights jointly enter regulatory charters, this experiment rooted in the cypherpunk spirit finally passes its compliance “coming of age.” As Vitalik Buterin said during the ETH Shanghai upgrade, “Blockchain isn’t rebuilding financial systems—it’s redefining value flow grammar.” This regulatory shift perhaps writes the first punctuation mark recognized by the mainstream world for this new grammar.