Overview

• Andreessen Horowitz and the DeFi Education Fund formally submitted a letter on August 12 requesting the SEC shield decentralized app developers from broker-dealer classification
• The proposal requires eligible dApps to remain non-custodial, never execute transactions without user consent, refrain from investment advice and interact only with sufficiently decentralized protocols
• It allows teams to retain operational control during a phased decentralization process if they demonstrate good-faith progress and keep assets under an unspecified threshold
• The submission arrives as SEC Chair Paul Atkins’s Project Crypto and recent White House recommendations bolster prospects for targeted DeFi regulatory relief
• The SEC has yet to respond to the petition, leaving the adoption timeline and any potential modifications uncertain