The DeFi Education Fund and venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) are calling on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create a regulatory safe harbor for certain blockchain-based applications.
In a joint letter sent Wednesday to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, the groups proposed a framework that would exempt qualifying decentralized finance (DeFi) apps from broker-dealer registration requirements.
The proposal comes as the SEC, under the Trump administration, signals a shift in its approach to digital asset regulation. Over the past year, the agency has launched a crypto task force aimed at setting a “sensible regulatory path,” dropped investigations into several crypto companies, and introduced “Project Crypto” to modernize rules around digital assets. President Donald Trump has publicly vowed to make the United States the “crypto capital.”
The letter from a16z and the DeFi Education Fund specifically cites prior enforcement actions that the groups argue misapplied securities laws to blockchain software. The SEC had alleged that Coinbase Wallet functioned as an unregistered broker, a claim later dismissed by a court. Uniswap Labs and OpenSea were also previously investigated, but those inquiries were dropped.
Under the proposed safe harbor, applications would be excluded from broker-dealer oversight if they are non-custodial, do not make recommendations or exercise discretion, and are built on decentralized protocols.
According to the letter, most blockchain apps are “fundamentally non-custodial, passive software tools that allow users to interact directly with public, decentralized network and protocol infrastructure.”
Amanda Tuminelli, executive director of the DeFi Education Fund, explained that the safe harbor aims to be flexible while offering much-needed clarity for developers. She noted that the proposal is intended to give front-end developers clear guidelines, allowing them to build without the fear of being subjected to unreasonable requirements that don’t align with the realities of the technology.
Andreessen Horowitz has a history of advocating for clearer crypto regulations in the U.S., frequently pressing for securities laws to be kept off activities that do not present traditional market risks. The latest petition aligns with growing support for DeFi from both the White House and SEC leadership.
“The guiding principle of the safe harbor is that only those apps which do not engender the risks that the Exchange Act’s broker-dealer regulatory regime was designed to address should be eligible,” the proposal states, adding that in such cases, requiring registration as a broker would be “unwarranted and inappropriate.”
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