Arguably, you can say that the underlying of the trading protocol itself is decentralized, but in the altcoins world, I don't think most people really bother to run nodes on their own. And here comes another problem, the third-party node/endpoint/api platforms. Let's say in case the DEX won't comply, well those third-party platforms can manually block or censor, a specific address that is unknown since they operate in a centralized way and surely will comply with the current regulations.
That sucks. I've thought crypto/Blockchain tech was all about decentralization and censorship-resistance. Blocking access to some tokens would make the aforementioned "DEXs" no different than any ordinary centralized exchange. While it's still possible to trade directly via smart contracts, not everyone knows how to do it.
That's the thing. In order to gain censorship resistance for using the platform, users must run their own node and use the DEXs app in their own local environments.
With censorship on the web interface, governments will be able to successfully enforce KYC/AML laws. That wouldn't had been possible if the interface was hosted on an alternative network that's decentralized by design (eg: Maidsafe, ZeroNet, etc.). Regulations seem to be increasing in the crypto sector, so we haven't seen the worst yet. Who knows what will mainstream governments do next? Just my thoughts
Actually, noting the link I mentioned, if users just run the app on their own or visit via decentralized/IPFS web without directly editing the code, they are still using the censored/restricted/blocked codebase.
So it is necessary, that in the worst case scenario, the interface must be forked in order to remove the code that contains to blocks some specific countries or tokens.
