At the SEC roundtable on cryptocurrency, important voices expressed their views on DeFi, code, and regulation:
• SEC Chair Atkins: “Engineers should not be held responsible for how others use their code.”
• Hester Peirce: “Code is an expression protected under the First Amendment.”
• Erik Voorhees: “Smart contracts are a functional improvement over human regulators.”
• Others argued that decentralizations are not unlawful — they are transparent, predictable, and user-focused.
💬 What do you think about these comments? Should DeFi developers be protected like open-source builders — or should they be held accountable like financial intermediaries? As finance becomes more code-centric, how should regulation evolve?