DeFi Should Not Be Regulated, Crypto Advocates Tell UK Regulator

Crypto advocates told the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the U.K.’s financial watchdog, that decentralized finance (DeFi) should not be regulated because it is too difficult to do so.

In May, the FCA hosted its first two-day CryptoSprint, which gathered 184 industry participants from the U.K. and beyond its borders to hear their thoughts on how the industry should be regulated. Suggestions made by industry representatives – which included company executives, compliance officers and lawyers – were published on the FCA’s website on Wednesday.

According to the report, some participants in the room thought that DeFi, which describes a range of blockchain-powered financial applications designed to cut out intermediaries and centralized institutions such as banks, should not be regulated due to the philosophical ambitions behind its creation.

However, regulators have been watching DeFi lending platforms like Celsius closely after it seemingly folded under pressure from the recent crypto markets downturn.

Other ideas that were raised at the CryptoSprint included using the public ledgers that underlie some cryptocurrency networks to regulate crypto markets, and setting up international definitions for crypto assets.

FCA Chief Executive Nikhil Rathi, head of banking at HM Treasury David Raw, and Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, information and intelligence officer were all in attendance.

The FCA hosted CryptoSprint as a way to engage the industry and has not made any promises to create or modify regulations based on what was suggested. For many in the U.K. crypto space, the initiative signaled the FCA was finally starting to listen.

Read more: The Crypto Community Says the UK’s FCA Is Finally Starting to Listen

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