The cold winter of US regulation seems to be quietly receding, and a ray of light of "innovation exemption" has shone into the DeFi field.

On June 9, the positive signal released by the top SEC officials indicated that the DeFi platform may usher in a more friendly development environment.

The cold winter of U.S. regulation seems to be quietly receding, and a ray of light of "innovation exemption" has shone into the DeFi field. On June 9, the positive signal released by the top SEC officials indicated that the DeFi platform may usher in a more friendly development environment.

However, under the influence of this policy, the DeFi market has presented an intriguing picture: on the one hand, the TVL of the top protocols represented by Aave has repeatedly set new highs, and the fundamental data is strong; on the other hand, the TVL of many top DeFi protocols has been weak, and the token price is still lower than at the beginning of the year. The market's "value discovery" road seems to be still long.

Although DeFi tokens have seen a rapid rebound in the past two days, is this due to the disturbance of short-term market sentiment or the driving force of deep value logic? PANews focuses on the latest developments and data performance of the top DeFi players, analyzing the opportunities and challenges therein.

SEC sends positive signals: DeFi regulation welcomes "innovation exemption" framework

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently sent a significant positive signal on DeFi regulation. At the "DeFi and the American Spirit" crypto roundtable held on June 9, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said that the basic principles of DeFi are consistent with the core values of the United States, such as economic freedom and private property rights, and supports the self-custody of crypto assets. He emphasized that blockchain technology has enabled financial transactions without intermediaries, and the SEC should not hinder such innovation.

In addition, Chairman Atkins revealed for the first time that he had instructed staff to study and develop an "innovation exemption" policy framework for DeFi platforms. The framework is intended to "quickly allow SEC-regulated entities and non-regulated entities to bring on-chain products and services to market." He also made it clear that developers who build self-custodial or privacy-focused software should not be held liable under federal securities laws simply for publishing code, and mentioned that the SEC's Corporate Finance Division has clarified that PoW mining and PoS staking do not constitute securities transactions in themselves.

Commissioner Hester Peirce, head of the SEC's crypto task force, also expressed support, emphasizing that code publishers should not be held responsible for others using the code, but also warned centralized entities not to evade regulation by using the "decentralized" label.

Against the backdrop of the SEC's Republican members pushing for more crypto-friendly policies, these statements were seen as a major positive by the market, causing a surge in the price of DeFi tokens. If the “innovation exemption” is implemented, it is expected to create a more relaxed and clear regulatory environment for the development of DeFi projects in the United States.

Data review: TVL growth is weak, tokens rebound strongly

After the meeting released favorable regulatory policies, the dormant DeFi tokens ushered in a general rise. In particular, the top projects such as Aave, LDO, UNI, COMP, etc. generally saw a sharp increase of 20% to 40%. But is this a flash in the pan caused by news alone or is it the result of the natural growth of the DeFi industry? PANews reviewed the data of the top 20 DeFi protocols in the past six months.

Generally speaking, the TVL growth of these leading DeFi protocols in the first half of 2025 is not obvious, and the TVL of 7 of them has declined in the first half of the year. Among the rising protocols, 5 have grown by no more than 5%, which is basically stagnant. The fastest growing one is BUIDL launched by BlackRock. This protocol is different from the traditional DeFi protocol and strictly belongs to the category of RWA. Among other protocols, Aave has seen more obvious growth, with TVL exceeding US$26 billion, reaching a historical high, and an increase of more than US$6 billion in the first half of the year. Spark from the Sky system has seen a 72.97% increase.

Although the TRON ecosystem has achieved sustained growth in stablecoins this year, the TVL data of JustLend, the leading DeFi protocol in its ecosystem, fell by 39.82% in the first half of the year, becoming the leading protocol with the largest decline. In addition, popular protocols such as Sky, Lido, EigenLayer, and Uniswap, which have attracted relatively high market attention, also experienced varying degrees of decline in the first half of the year.

Token prices also seem to be amplifying this downward trend. The average maximum retracement of the token prices of the top 20 DeFi protocols in the first half of 2025 reached 57%. Even with the recent market recovery and the sharp rebound of tokens of various protocols, most of the protocol tokens have not