U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins says the agency is developing a policy to provide an “innovation exemption” for decentralized finance platforms, aiming to ease regulatory barriers and support the growth of blockchain-based financial systems.

At a recent crypto roundtable entitled “DeFi and the American Spirit,” Atkins said he had directed SEC staff to consider changes to agency rules that would allow issuers and intermediaries to administer onchain financial systems more freely.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

The exemption policy would enable entities under the SEC’s regulatory purview to roll out onchain products and services to market more quickly, provided they met certain conditions. 

Atkins emphasized that software developers should not be held responsible for how decentralized tools were used, drawing a distinction between writing code and regulated financial activity, even arguing that regulating the publication of code would infringe on Constitutional First Amendment rights.