PANews reported on June 5th, citing Cointelegraph, that U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce stated that releasing DeFi open-source code falls under First Amendment-protected free speech and should not automatically impose securities regulatory obligations on developers. She pointed out that many blockchain projects involve releasing open-source software, which is generally protected under the First Amendment.

Peirce cautioned against applying rules designed for centralized financial institutions to decentralized blockchain networks, citing the SEC's rulebook's abundance of intermediary concepts such as brokers, dealers, exchanges, clearinghouses, transfer agents, investment advisors, and investment firms. She questioned whether these rules should be extended to the blockchain infrastructure itself, pointing to the wide range of purposes beyond securities trading that distributed networks serve. She stated that decentralized protocols can function without traditional intermediaries, and liability for securities law violations should typically fall on the individuals engaging in illegal activities.