After strong pushback from decentralized finance proponents earlier this week, Sam Bankman-Fried has once again taken to Twitter to share his thoughts on how he envisions the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA) affecting the DeFi sector. Still, many remain unconvinced.
Bankman-Fried acknowledged the importance of comments made by the wider DeFi community before noting that the “core goal” of the DCCPA bill is to answer: “How can a regulated centralized entity interface with DeFi?”
“In particular, it is *not* making claims about what DeFi devs, smart contracts, and validators must do,” Bankman-Fried tweeted. “It’s looking to eventually establish guidelines about how e.g. FTX’s platform–or Fidelity’s–could interface with DeFi contracts.” The FTX CEO also noted that he’d only support a version clarifying that developers and validators are not (and shouldn’t be regulated as) platforms.
The intersection of centralized entities with DeFi, in particular, was highlighted as a sticking point by pseudonymous ApeWorX Ltd. builder “señor doggo,” who tweeted that “it should *never* be the case that there is a mandate to access DeFi through a centralized intermediary’s interface,” further noting that: “Devs should be allowed to build whatever interfaces they want.”
The fear exists that DCCPA won’t allow developers to build whatever interfaces they want — at least, not without centralized entities grabbing a piece of the pie. CEHV partner Adam Cochran noted that “the revised version still reads at how can there be a moat that lets centralized entities control at least part of the flow into DeFi, so they can profit from it.”
The desire for regulation-driven profit is something with which some crypto proponents are taking major issue — especially because Bankman-Fried’s industry endeavors have been extremely profitable. “I’m all for people hustling hard and winning,” 1492.eth tweeted to their 50.3k followers. “FTX/Alameda has clearly hustled hard and is winning big[.] The issue is making money by fleecing retail and then trying to pose as the savior for crypto regulation and consumer protection in the U.S.”
Meanwhile, some argue that anyone working with regulators to benefit the crypto industry isn’t actually doing so to benefit the crypto industry. “The people ‘saving crypto’ aren’t even the lobbyists,” saidPreston Byrne, partner at Brown Rudnick. “They’re mostly the devs who are making it harder to ban, harder to stop, and more useful for end users. Crypto will win not by colliding with regulation but by outrunning it.”
