This time it’s not the old routine of retail investors and regulators.
It’s Citadel Securities,
One of the top market-making and trading machines on Wall Street,
Personally wrote a 13-page letter to the SEC,
A one-sentence summary of the core demand:
👉 DeFi must be included in the traditional intermediary regulatory system.
In translation:
You can innovate, but you must follow my rules.
As a result, the DeFi industry did not retreat this time.
1. Why is this rebuttal letter so heavy?
This is not some anonymous DAO's emotional output.
The ones who stood up to co-sign are an entire chain of power in American DeFi:
DeFi Education Fund
a16z
Digital business association
Uniswap Foundation
Top legal scholars
They said something very harsh in the letter:
👉 Citadel's argument is 'groundless and contains multiple factual misstatements'.
In the context of Washington, this is already close to a showdown term.
Second, what is Citadel really afraid of?
On the surface, Citadel is saying:
Investor protection
Market order
Integrity of the national market system
But the DeFi alliance directly points out the essence:
👉 This is a company protecting its market share.
You need to understand one thing:
What is the core profit source of Citadel?
Market making
Matching
Liquidity Intermediary
Information advantage
And what is DeFi doing?
👉 Write 'intermediary' into the code.
If tokenized securities can really be on-chain:
Automatic matching
Automatic liquidation
Automatic settlement
No need for brokers
So who will be the first to be marginalized?
It's not retail investors, it's Citadel.
Third, why is the battleground 'tokenized securities + DeFi'
You notice a key point:
Citadel is not against crypto,
It clearly states in the letter:
👉 Support tokenization, support leadership in digital finance.
But it provided a premise:
👉 Must go through SEC registered intermediary organizations.
What does it mean if this step is written into the rules?
DeFi protocols = must register
Developers = potential responsible entities
On-chain market = 'plugin' of traditional exchanges
In one sentence:
Decentralization can only exist within a shell.
Fourth, why must DeFi stand firm here?
The core logic of the DeFi alliance's counterattack is actually very clear:
👉 Not all market functions need to rely on traditional intermediaries to achieve.
Their attitude is:
Investor protection is important
Market order is important
But it does not mean that 'only Wall Street's methods can achieve it'
In other words:
👉 Code is not a savage growth, but another path to compliance.
If this step does not counterattack,
Then all subsequent DeFi protocols will be stuck in:
Registration is not feasible
Compliance costs are out of control
Innovation is forced to relocate
Fifth, why is this a critical time point?
Pay attention to the background environment:
The new SEC management team of the Trump camp has obviously released a signal of easing
White House crypto advisors openly support protecting DeFi and developers
Coinbase is bringing prediction markets and tokenized stocks into the compliance system
Stablecoins have begun acquiring real assets
In other words:
👉 The rules have not been finalized.
This is exactly why Citadel is most anxious.
Because once DeFi is included in this round of rule-making,
Preserve the legitimacy of 'operating without intermediaries',
Then it won't be easily changed by regulation.
Sixth, this is not DeFi vs SEC, but a battle of routes
You need to see one thing clearly:
👉 This time, it's not the SEC pressuring DeFi.
but rather:
Citadel is trying to leverage the SEC
Write 'intermediary status' into the future of DeFi
What the DeFi alliance is doing is to inform the regulatory authorities in advance:
👉 You can regulate risks, but you cannot write commercial interests into law.
Seventh, connecting it with all previous news, the logic is very complete
Look back at the clues from the past few days:
Coinbase incorporates prediction markets into the compliance system
Stock tokenization is clearly defined as a 'slow variable'
Stablecoins lead the way, occupying settlement and entry points
Crypto stocks have been abandoned by funds
And DeFi is guarding 'the last moat'
What does this indicate?
👉 New finance is being allowed into the system, but it does not guarantee that originalist decentralization can survive.
So, whether it can survive depends on this round of rule games.
Eighth, my judgment is very clear
👉 Citadel is not anti-innovation, it is against 'losing intermediary status'.
👉 If DeFi does not counterattack this time, it will be locked in the structure of Wall Street for the next ten years.
This is not a battle of emotions,
It's a distribution issue of financial power.
💬
What do you think DeFi will ultimately do:
Completely integrated into the traditional financial system,
Should we still retain a truly permissionless market space?
If you can only choose one, which side are you on?
Let's chat in the comments section.$BTC
