a16z and DeFi Fund Push SEC for Safe Harbor on Decentralized Exchanges

Andreessen Horowitz and the DeFi Education Fund have jointly submitted a proposal to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) urging the creation of a safe harbor for qualifying decentralized exchanges.

The proposed safe harbor would presume that non-custodial, automated, permissionless, and credibly neutral DEXs are not operating as exchanges unless regulators can show otherwise.

This move aims to provide regulatory clarity and bolster on-chain trading security, encouraging the growth of DEXs over centralized exchanges (CEXs) and reducing legal risk for token launches and fundraising.

The proposal follows recent temporary SEC relief for permissioned platforms trading tokenized US stocks. However, this relief does not cover decentralized finance systems.