Catenaa, Thursday, August 14, 2025- Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and the DeFi Education Fund have urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt a regulatory safe harbor for certain blockchain applications, seeking to clarify broker-dealer rules for non-custodial platforms.
In a letter sent Wednesday to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, the groups said the measure would cover applications such as Uniswap, Coinbase Wallet and OpenSea, provided they do not hold customer assets, make recommendations, or exercise discretion. They said the underlying protocols must also be decentralized.
The proposal comes as the SEC, under President Donald Trump’s administration, shifts toward a more industry-friendly stance. Over the past year, the agency created a crypto task force, ended several investigations into blockchain firms and launched “Project Crypto” to update rules for digital assets.
Both groups said past enforcement actions had targeted applications as unregistered brokers, including claims against Coinbase Wallet, Uniswap Labs and OpenSea, which were later dropped. A safe harbor, they said, would provide clarity, maintain the SEC’s oversight of high-risk activities and allow U.S. developers to innovate without the threat of misapplied regulations.
Amanda Tuminelli, executive director of the DeFi Education Fund, said the safe harbor is meant to be flexible, offering front-end developers clear guidelines while aligning with the decentralized nature of blockchain technology.
