a16z and DeFi Education Fund Urge SEC to Exempt DEXs From Exchange Registration

The push matters less as a plea than as a signal of where industry lobbying now aims: not at winning a single enforcement case, but at shaping the default legal classification for decentralized venues before any formal rulemaking. That distinction affects builders choosing between protocol and front-end architectures, and centralized platforms that would face a parallel, ATS-style registration path. The SEC's innovation exemption for tokenized equity venues three days later suggests the agency is at least experimenting with tailored relief. Whether that openness extends to a rebuttable presumption for DEXs is the open question.