Citadel’s SEC Letter: DeFi’s ‘Wild West’ Gets a Cops-and-Robbers Reality Check 🤠💸

by

Finance

The Scoop:

  • Citadel Securities told the SEC that DeFi protocols are basically Wall Street in disguise, just with fancier calculators and fewer suits (unless you count hoodies as formalwear). 🤡
  • They insisted exemptions for DeFi should go through “formal rulemaking,” which is corporate speak for “let’s slow-roll this until the 22nd century.” ⏳
  • Hayden Adams and crypto Twitter lost it, comparing Citadel’s stance to blaming the inventor of the wheel for enabling chariot races. 🛠️🏎️

Citadel Securities, ever the concerned babysitter, urged the SEC to step in before DeFi turns into a crypto Lord of the Flies scenario. Their argument? Smart contracts that match buyers and sellers are “basically exchanges,” which would make their creators “technically broker-dealers.” Next they’ll say breathing is “technically” a regulated activity. 🚬

The crypto crowd, meanwhile, threw a fit on social media. Not because they’re opposed to regulation-no, they just hate when suits try to gatecrash their party and demand ID at the door. 🔥

The SEC, which under Gary Gensler was about as crypto-friendly as a gluten-free bakery at a bread convention, has warmed up to crypto since Trump’s return. Gensler’s reign was basically a horror movie for DeFi fans: “The Blob” meets “Office Space.” 🧟♂️📉

Citadel’s letter claimed DeFi protocols “resemble regulated infrastructure.” Sure, Jan. And I resemble a $50 bill. 🤔

They also warned about “uneven oversight” between tokenized and traditional markets. Translation: “We can’t let these crypto rebels have nice things without charging them a toll.” 💰

Hayden Adams, the brains behind Uniswap, fired back like a kid whose lemonade stand just got shut down by the NYSE: “Oh, so now open-source developers are ‘intermediaries’? Next thing you know, baking a cake from scratch will require a food handler’s permit.” 🍰

BlockProf, crypto’s snarkiest policy guru, summed it up: “Citadel just declared war on crypto. Get your popcorn ready for the regulatory smackdown of the century.” 🍿

Read More

2025-12-04 14:10