The DeFi Education Fund and Uniswap argue that the SEC should treat decentralized autonomous organizations as individuals, not as companies.

Crypto lobby group the DeFi Education Fund and the Uniswap Foundation have said the Securities and Exchange Commission should be hands-off on regulating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

The May 27 letter to SEC Crypto Task Force lead Hester Peirce argued that the agency should not treat DAOs under the purview of the securities-defining Howey test if they’re “sufficiently decentralized,” as they are not identifiable and are not a coordinated group.

Instead, the pair said DAOs should be treated as individuals or a group of persons unless proved otherwise. 

“If a DAO has a dispersed collection of tokenholders who have the opportunity to actively participate in and govern the DAO and the network, it is sufficiently decentralized such that neither the network token for that DAO, nor transactions in which that network token are the object, should be considered a security.” the letter read.

The letter was issued in response to Peirce’s Feb. 21 statement, which invited comments on crypto.

Favorable regulatory environment

The SEC has flipped on its crypto enforcement actions under the Trump administration, which successfully installed the former crypto lobbyist Paul Atkins to lead the agency.

Atkins has stated that blockchain technology could usher in new forms of market activity.

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The following week, Atkins said that the regulator would not stifle innovation and lambasted the Biden administration’s approach to crypto.

In a May 20 SEC oversight hearing, Atkins confirmed that the Crypto Task Force’s first report will be released in the next few months, the group is also holding a series of crypto-related roundtable discussions with industry players.

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Eric Adams wants to repeal New York’s BitLicense, which the state launched in 2015 and has been criticised by the crypto industry for being too costly.

Swyftx lead analyst Pav Hundal says “a wall of money” is coming into Bitcoin after a US court blocked Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“This week is absolutely critical,” said analyst Willy Woo, who cautioned that more consolidation could be ahead for Bitcoin.

Elon Musk says he’s quitting his cost-cutting side hustle DOGE, admitting he spent “too much time on politics” and it was harder than he anticipated.

K33 CEO Bull Jenssen said his firm hopes to use its Bitcoin holdings as a foundation to offer new services, such as BTC-backed lending.