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ARTICLE · 16 NOVEMBER 2021

SEC Commissioner To DeFi: Follow The Law Or Face Enforcement

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
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In a recent article, SEC Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw encouraged decentralized finance (DeFi) participants to voluntarily comply with securities law regulations, in particular those governing risk disclosure, ...

United StatesTechnology
Benjamin T. Brickner
Benjamin T. Brickner
Jacqueline C. Wolff
Jacqueline C. Wolff

In a recent article, SEC Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw encouraged decentralized finance (DeFi) participants to voluntarily comply with securities law regulations, in particular those governing risk disclosure, warning that additional enforcement actions are likely against those who fail to do so.1

Background

The reach of decentralized finance (DeFi) and related technologies has grown rapidly in the past several years. Broadly speaking, DeFi seeks to offer financial services through self-executing "smart" contracts and decentralized transaction records—"blockchains"—that reduce the need for traditional financial intermediaries.

Initially popularized by the digital currency Bitcoin, blockchain technology and the DeFi applications that it enables have proliferated. From collateralized lending to interest-bearing deposits and fractionalized asset ownership through non-fungible tokens, financial services companies new and old are developing novel financial

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