The Chamber of Digital Commerce released its DeFi Policy Principles on April 6, outlining recommendations for how decentralized finance (DeFi) should be regulated. The document distinguishes between non-custodial and intermediated (institutional) uses of DeFi technology.
The policy principles address ongoing debates about the regulatory treatment of developers, protocols, and institutions in the digital asset sector. The Chamber says that financial regulatory obligations should apply to entities that have custody or control over user assets, rather than those who simply develop or maintain open-source software.
According to the statement, developers who do not hold or control users’ digital assets should not be considered money transmitters or subject to financial regulations just for building or maintaining open-source DeFi software. The Chamber also states that permissionless protocols are core digital infrastructure and should not be classified as financial intermediaries such as money transmitters or other financial institutions.
The organization calls for legal protections for developers across the entire lifecycle of decentralized systems, including deployment and upgrades. It further recommends a clear distinction between digital assets—which function as property—and smart contract software, which it describes as infrastructure rather than property. The document asserts that developers should not face civil or criminal liability solely because third parties use their open-source tools independently.
For institutional uses of DeFi, the Chamber says that compliance obligations rest with intermediaries and custodians accessing these protocols on behalf of clients. Developers building related smart contract software should not automatically be treated as financial intermediaries based only on their role in creating code. When proprietary systems are used by institutions—such as algorithms or AI agents—the entities controlling those systems would bear proportionate regulatory responsibilities.
The release concludes by stating that digital asset institutions have fiduciary duties to act in clients’ best interests and should not be prevented from using DeFi platforms to fulfill those obligations.
