New Opportunities in the DeFi Field: Regulatory Easing and Market Dynamics Analysis

The changes in the regulatory environment in the United States have brought new opportunities to the DeFi field. Recently, the positive signals released by senior officials of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that DeFi platforms may welcome a more favorable development environment.

However, against this backdrop of positive news, the DeFi market presents a complex picture: some leading protocols, such as Aave, have reached new highs in Total Value Locked (TVL), and fundamental data shows strong performance; however, the TVL growth of many top DeFi protocols remains slow, and token prices are still below the levels at the beginning of the year, suggesting that the market's value discovery process seems to be ongoing. Although DeFi tokens have recently experienced a rapid rebound, it remains to be seen whether this reflects short-term market sentiment fluctuations or is driven by deeper value logic.

SEC Policy Shift: DeFi Regulatory Framework May Become More Open

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has recently shown a significant shift in its regulatory stance towards Decentralized Finance (DeFi). During a crypto roundtable, the SEC Chairman stated that the fundamental principles of DeFi align with core values such as economic freedom and private property rights in the United States, and he supports the self-custody of crypto assets. He emphasized that blockchain technology enables financial transactions without intermediaries, and regulators should not hinder such innovations.

It is worth noting that the SEC chairman has revealed for the first time that staff have been instructed to study and develop a "innovation exemption" policy framework targeting DeFi platforms. This framework aims to "quickly allow entities under SEC jurisdiction and non-jurisdictional entities to bring on-chain products and services to market." He also made it clear that developers of self-custody or privacy-focused software should not bear liability under federal securities laws solely for releasing code, and mentioned that relevant SEC departments have clarified that proof-of-work mining and proof-of-stake staking do not, in themselves, constitute securities transactions.

The head of the SEC's cryptocurrency task force also expressed support, emphasizing that code publishers should not be held responsible for others' use of the code, while warning that centralized entities should not evade regulation by using the "decentralized" label.

Against the backdrop of Republican SEC commissioners pushing for more crypto-friendly policies, these statements have been seen by the market as a significant boon, triggering a short-term surge in DeFi token prices. 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 Analysis: Weak TVL Growth, Polarized Token Performance

After positive regulatory news was announced, DeFi tokens generally saw an increase. Notably, leading projects such as Aave, LDO, UNI, and COMP experienced a growth rate of 20%~40%. However, whether this is merely a market reaction driven by short-term news or the result of intrinsic growth in the DeFi industry still requires in-depth analysis.

After reviewing the data of the top 20 DeFi protocols over the past six months, it was found that the TVL growth of these protocols in the first half of 2025 was not significant, with 7 protocols experiencing a decline in TVL. Among the protocols that did increase, 5 saw growth of no more than 5%, maintaining their status quo. The fastest-growing was a RWA project that is different in nature from traditional DeFi protocols. Among other protocols, Aave performed notably well, with TVL surpassing $26 billion, reaching a historical high, and growing by over $6 billion in the first half of the year. A protocol from a certain ecosystem achieved a growth of 72.97%.

On the other hand, the TVL of a leading DeFi protocol in the ecosystem of a well-known public chain decreased by 39.82% in the first half of the year, becoming the protocol with the largest decline. Additionally, some protocols with higher market attention, such as a certain restaking protocol, a certain liquid staking protocol, and a certain DEX, also experienced varying degrees of decline in the first half of the year.

The token prices seem to further amplify this downward trend. The average maximum drawdown of the top 20 DeFi protocol tokens reached 57% in the first half of 2025. Although the market has recently warmed up, with significant rebounds in the tokens of various protocols, the vast majority have still failed to return to the price levels of January 1, 2025. Only one protocol's governance token has increased by 44.8% compared to January 1, while another has barely returned to a similar price as on January 1. Overall, these tokens have averaged a decline of 24% compared to their prices on January 1.

However, the token prices of these DeFi projects have generally rebounded significantly, with an average increase of about 95.59% from their lows. Some tokens have rebounded by more than 150%. From the trend, the recent lows of these tokens are mostly concentrated around April 7, similar to the overall trend of the cryptocurrency market, but the rebound strength is generally better than that of other types of tokens. However, whether from the perspective of price rebound or the overall trend in the past six months, the price movements of these tokens do not seem to have a direct correlation with the performance of the TVL of these DeFi protocols.

Key Project Analysis

Among many DeFi projects, some stand out particularly.

Aave: As a leading project in Decentralized Finance, its data performance in the first half of the year has been impressive, repeatedly breaking historical highs. At the same time, it has expanded to multiple public chains, currently supporting 18 public chains. To boost the token price, the Aave community has launched economic reform proposals including a weekly $1 million token buyback and income redistribution. In terms of product interest rates, although Aave's borrowing rates are not high, it has stronger liquidity, attracting the favor of many large investors.

A Major DEX: The project officially launched its new version in 2025, incorporating more flexible custom logic and significantly reducing Gas fees. Additionally, the launch of its new public chain further enhanced the project's competitiveness in the Decentralized Finance ecosystem. Although the TVL declined in the first half of the year, this was mainly due to the drop in Ethereum prices, but the amount staked in ETH has seen an increase compared to January.

A certain decentralized stablecoin project: The project underwent a comprehensive brand upgrade in 2024. Although the TVL began to decline after the upgrade, another protocol within the ecosystem showed new potential in the RWA direction, and the combined TVL of the two protocols will exceed 11 billion USD. Its token performed notably in 2025, rising from a low of around 800 USD to 2100 USD, an increase of over 170%. However, its complex restructuring plan involves multiple aspects, including governance mechanisms, token economics, and product portfolio, making it difficult for the market to form a simple understanding.

A Certain Re-Staking Project: This project has pioneered the new concept of "re-staking". Since its launch, the TVL has experienced explosive growth, reaching $12.4 billion, making it the third-ranked DeFi protocol. Although the popularity of the re-staking concept has declined in 2024, since April, the TVL data of this project has clearly entered a new growth cycle, increasing from $7 billion to $12.4 billion in less than two months, a growth rate of 77%.

A certain liquid staking project: As a leader in the liquid staking field, this project once dominated the market with its flagship product, with a TVL that approached $40 billion in 2024. However, since the second half of 2024, with the rapid growth of Ethereum L2, this project, which is overly concentrated on the Ethereum mainnet (with over 99% on the mainnet), has shown signs of decline, with TVL continuing to drop. Its token has also not performed outstandingly in the recent rebound, with a maximum increase of 61% from the low to June 10, far below the average of the top 20 DeFi tokens.

The improvement of the regulatory environment has undoubtedly injected confidence into the U.S. DeFi market. The regulatory uncertainties that have long plagued project teams are expected to ease, and some pending innovations may truly take shape. Data trends are also worth noting: although Ethereum remains the main bearer of TVL, the development momentum of DeFi increasingly shows its independence, even beginning to return value to the underlying public chains. In the future, clearer regulations may attract more traditional financial capital to enter the DeFi field with lower risk preferences; at the same time, large financial institutions' attempts to launch specialized DeFi products not only indicate a broader prospect for integration but also mean that competition in the incremental market will become more intense. This new situation, opened up by regulatory easing, may be a new starting point for DeFi to mature and deeply integrate with traditional finance.