Columbia Law School
Sky Blog
DeFi
Crypto-Derivatives
In a new article, I examine how the role of derivatives in the crypto industry compares in terms of sophistication and leverage with their role in traditional finance. Engaging in the first qualitative and empirical analysis of the issue, …
Skadden Discusses Democratic DeFi Proposal and Cryptoasset Market-Structure Regulation
- What’s new: Senate Democrats have introduced a DeFi proposal that creates a new regulatory framework for decentralized finance platforms, focusing on preventing illicit finance and regulatory arbitrage by applying existing securities market requirements to DeFi.
- Why it matters: The DeFi
Bringing Accountability Back to Decentralized Finance
The promise of decentralized finance (DeFi) was that it would replace often conflict-ridden financial intermediaries and hierarchies with automated systems that we could trust. The reality, however, is that DeFi has not eradicated conflicts or trust issues but shifted them …
Wachtell Lipton Discusses Cryptoasset Developments: Continued Progress Toward U.S. Regulatory Clarity
As regulators and policymakers across the federal government press forward with creating long-sought rules of the road for the cryptoasset industry, several recent developments bear particular significance for the promise of the decentralized internet, or Web3. Among these is the …
U.S. Banking Agencies’ Shift Toward Crypto Integration
In April 2025, the landscape of U.S. crypto regulation shifted significantly. Three of the country’s principal bank regulators – the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) – jointly …
Uniswap’s Reprieve Reveals the Uncertainty of DeFi Regulation
In 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued Wells notices to at least 13 crypto companies – several of which were decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms – including Uniswap Labs (Uniswap), the second largest decentralized exchange (DEX) by trading volume
Can Decentralized Finance Promote Democracy?
In a recent paper, I draw a rough map of the vast field of decentralized finance (DeFi). DeFi serves as an umbrella term for financial platform transactions that operate through automated protocols on blockchain and have prompted hard discussions …
How to Regulate FinTech, Crypto Assets, DeFi, and Other Financial Innovations
In a new article, I attempt to build a systematic framework for regulating FinTech-driven innovations. In doing so, I clarify and simplify the confusing terminology that makes FinTech appear more complicated than it is.
“FinTech” refers to the use of …
Skadden Discusses CFTC Charges That DeFi Developers Facilitated Off-Exchange Trading
On September 7, 2023, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued three enforcement settlement orders against developers of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.1 The orders charge Opyn, Inc., Deridex, Inc., and ZeroEx, Inc. (0x) with illegally offering leveraged and margined …
How Crypto Has Become Vulnerable to Problems of Traditional Finance
SEC Chair Gensler Speaks on Alternative Trading Systems and the Definition of an Exchange
Today [April 14], the Commission is considering whether to issue a supplemental release to our January 2022 proposal requiring significant trading platforms—including in the Treasury markets—to come under important rules for the markets. I believe this supplemental release would help
Decentralized Finance, Crypto Funds, and Value Creation in Tokenized Firms
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) employs blockchain technology and smart contracts with the goal of enabling perfectly disintermediated financial markets. Despite the far-reaching ambition, DeFi markets are experiencing increasing intermediation recently, as a new type of intermediary, so-called Crypto Funds (henceforth, CFs), …
Paul Weiss Discusses SEC Focus on Crypto Enforcement
At the Aspen Security Forum on August 2, 2021, SEC Chair Gary Gensler reaffirmed the SEC’s heightened focus on cryptocurrency. Following these comments, the SEC announced two enforcement resolutions that provide further guidance on the SEC’s approach to crypto enforcement. …