FTX New Crypto Regulatory ‘Manual’, Warns ‘Locking In’ DeFi Policy

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of FTX and also known as “SBF” in the cryptocurrency community, warned decision-makers against “locking in” positions that may have an influence on decentralised finance.

The DeFi remark may be found in a 3,800 word “industry norms manual” that was released on Wednesday in the late afternoon.

The day before Bankman-tweet, Fried’s The Block reported that senators were discussing amendments to a measure introduced by Senators Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and John Boozman of Arkansas. DeFi supporters had also been harshly critical of the plan, which Bankman-Fried supports. Regulators are also investigating the company’s compliance with financial rules, including a Texas probe that may have an impact on FTX’s planned acquisition of the assets of insolvent crypto lender Voyager.

“Above all else: figuring out how and where DeFi and things tangentially related to DeFi do and don’t fit into regulatory contexts is a hard problem, and one on which there is not yet firmly settled thought. We should be careful about locking in decisions absent working out a sound and responsible basis for doing so,” Bankman-Fried wrote.

The crypto billionaire said he believes an industry group would “mull over” the issues mentioned in his proposal and ultimately “publish an appropriate set of community norms.”

Bankman-Fried also extols the virtues of blockchain technology’s potential to enhance conventional financial markets in the piece.

“Tokenizing stocks could help simplify securities settlement, providing a stronger and more equitable market structure for retail,” he wrote.

Like other U.S.-based financial institutions, FTX will not list tokens in the United States before determining if a financial asset meets the legal requirement for security status as laid out by a Supreme Court judgement.