In July of this year, Coinbase and Polygon Labs co-hosted a roundtable in Brussels, with public and private sector participants — industry, academics, researchers and policymakers — to address key policy questions related to decentralized finance (“DeFi”).  

Today, we are releasing a summary of the roundtable — held under Chatham House rules — to provide transparency and help policymakers and regulators as they continue developing approaches to DeFi.

The document can be downloaded as a PDF here.

DeFi continues to grow in importance in policy discussions, especially in the EU where the Markets in Crypto Assets (“MiCA”) regulatory framework has entered the final stages of implementation. 

Although MiCA excludes services conducted in a “fully decentralised manner without any intermediary,” it left open how to define and identify such services, leaving national regulators to contend with the difficult task of understanding decentralization.

The roundtable — part of a series co-hosted by Polygon Labs and Coinbase — sought to educate on the technical mechanics of DeFi systems and whether and when there may be intermediaries in these systems and debate informed perspectives on how to achieve policy goals in user protection, market fairness/efficiency and financial integrity. 

As detailed in the roundtable summary, participants generally found that technological advancements may address emerging risks and issues within DeFi in a more effective and adaptive way, which could help achieve policy goals while allowing the innovation to continue evolving.

A summary of the event includes key takeaways from the discussion that industry and regulators can use alike to start new and/or frame existing conversations about potential policy frameworks for DeFi. 

Download the document here. 

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