CFTC attacks DeFi projects

[zasad@]

https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8774-23
"Washington, D.C. — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today continued its enforcement focus in the digital asset decentralized finance (DeFi) space, by issuing orders simultaneously filing and settling charges against Opyn, Inc., a Delaware-registered company based in California; ZeroEx, Inc., a Delaware company based in California; and Deridex, Inc., a Delaware company based in North Carolina."

"Opyn, ZeroEx and Deridex were ordered to pay fines of $250,000, $200,000 and $100,000."


https://www.reuters.com/technology/global-regulators-seek-crack-down-decentralised-finance-2023-09-07/
Global regulators seek to crack down on decentralised finance

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[LoyceMobile]

I guess it's not as decentralized as the name makes it sound.

[joniboini]

I always find it weird that these companies register themselves and then launch a so-called defi platform and assume they can be free from government scrutiny. Most of the time they just launch a smart contract and then mint their own tokens while blocking people here and there. I guess the profit outweighs the cons since they just get fined for less than $1 million for now.

[stompix]

I guess it's not as decentralized as the name makes it sound.

It's the name that matters, you can sell now everything in crypto just with a label, and furthermore, I think it's getting worse, if a "project" doesn't have DefI, NFT, and many other stupid things in its description it doesn't get any traction. You need to cram everything in its whitepaper despite knowing you're going to end with a copycat of a copycat of a CEX and a shitty token.

The order finds that although Opyn took certain steps to exclude U.S. persons from accessing the Opyn Protocol, such as blocking users with U.S. internet protocol addresses, those steps were not sufficient to actually block U.S. users from accessing the Opyn Protocol.

Completely decentralized, permissionless and censorship resistant also I assume! 

I guess the profit outweighs the cons since they just get fined for less than $1 million for now.

I don't think that's the case for all of those platforms:

Deridex was an Algorand-powered derivatives platform. However, the project abruptly shut down in February, causing its TVL to fall from about $150,000 to $133 as of Sept. 8, according to DefiLlama.

So this one went bust before even being fined, the other one is powered by a token with $400k in market cap, so hardly affordings millions.

[zasad@]

I always find it weird that these companies register themselves and then launch a so-called defi platform and assume they can be free from government scrutiny. Most of the time they just launch a smart contract and then mint their own tokens while blocking people here and there. I guess the profit outweighs the cons since they just get fined for less than $1 million for now.

Not all DeFi is Decentralized. projects that want to attract investment have many levers for managing projects, even to the point of stopping ecosystems.
And you are right that the fine is very small even for a small project, but the Commodity Futures Trading Commission does not kill projects, as the SEC does.
But even non-decentralized DeFi projects for the crypto industry are better than their absence.

[avikz]

Defi is a marketing keyword. It has no relation with the decentralisation. So anyone can use the term Defi but it doesn't necessarily have to be decentralised in any way. So I think CFTC is just doing their job.

I foresee an increase in such kind of regulatory actions in future in the crypto related companies. It could be anything but many governments have now understood that they can't stop cryptocurrency. So now their focus is to control them.

[yhiaali3]

The strict policy pursued by the United States against the crypto industry has led to a decline in its leadership position in the world.

A study that takes into account the presence and accessibility of cryptocurrencies revealed that the United States fell to third place after recording a 6.5% drop in its score — from 7.7 in 2022 to 7.25 in 2023. Conversely, the degree of readiness for cryptocurrencies jumped in Switzerland increased by more than 9% — from 7.5 to 8.18 — ranking second in the world. While Hong Kong ranked first with a Cryptocurrency Readiness Score (CRS) of 8.36.

https://forexsuggest.com/worldwide-crypto-readiness-report-2023/

                                   

[zasad@]

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/defi-crypto-exchange-token-wash-trading-fraud-price-manipulation-2023-9

"At least $2 billion on decentralized crypto exchanges has been wash traded since 2020, according to a new report.
Wash trading is a form of market manipulation where a fraudster is trading with themselves.
The trend runs contrary to the general view of DeFi exchanges, which are regarded as safer than centralized exchanges.

Decentralized crypto exchanges are a hotbed for a certain type of fraud known as wash trading, according to a new report from Solidus Labs."

____
DeFi Ecosystems are also changing and there is a lot of fraud there. On the one hand, I agree that if these eco-systems are not regulated, then there will be a lot of fraud.