The regulatory winter in the United States seems to be quietly fading, as a glimmer of "innovation exemption" shines into the DeFi sector. On June 9, positive signals from SEC leadership suggested that DeFi platforms may soon enjoy a more favorable environment for development.

However, under the breeze of these new policies, the internal landscape of the DeFi market presents an intriguing picture: on one hand, leading protocols like Aave are seeing their TVL repeatedly hit new highs, with strong fundamental data; on the other hand, TVL growth for many top DeFi protocols remains sluggish, and token prices are still below their levels at the beginning of the year. It appears the road to "value discovery" in the market remains long. Although DeFi tokens have experienced a sharp rebound in the past two days, is this driven by short-term market sentiment or deeper value logic? PANews focuses on the latest developments and data performance of leading DeFi players, analyzing the opportunities and challenges within.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently issued significantly positive signals regarding DeFi regulation. At the "DeFi and the American Spirit" crypto roundtable held on June 9, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stated that the fundamental principles of DeFi align with core American values such as economic freedom and private property rights, and he supports self-custody of crypto assets. He emphasized that blockchain technology enables financial transactions without intermediaries, and the SEC should not hinder such innovation.

Additionally, Chairman Atkins revealed for the first time that he has instructed staff to study and formulate an "innovation exemption" policy framework for DeFi platforms. This framework aims to "swiftly allow both SEC-regulated and non-regulated entities to bring on-chain products and services to market." He also made it clear that developers building self-custody or privacy-focused software should not bear federal securities law liability simply for publishing code, and he mentioned that the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance has clarified that PoW mining and PoS staking, in themselves, do not constitute securities transactions.