Following a 13-page letter to the SEC from investment giant Citadel Securities suggesting stricter regulation of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that handle tokenized securities, the DeFi industry responded last Friday with its own letter, calling Citadel Securities' arguments "baseless." The new letter, jointly signed by the DeFi Education Fund, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), DigitalChamber, Orca Creative, lawyer J.W. Verret, and the Uniswap Foundation, stated: "While we share Citadel Securities' goals regarding investor protection, market order, and the integrity of national market systems, we disagree that achieving these goals always requires registration like traditional SEC intermediaries, and we also disagree that in some cases these requirements cannot be met through well-designed on-chain markets." Citadel Securities argued that DeFi protocols could potentially operate as exchanges or brokers requiring registration and regulation. However, under President Donald Trump, the new SEC leadership has been seeking more policy leeway for the crypto industry. White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt also posted on social media platform X, stating that his office supports the "necessity of protecting software developers and DeFi." A spokesperson for Citadel Securities stated in an email comment, "As we detailed in our comment letter, Citadel Securities strongly supports tokenization and other innovations that can solidify the U.S. leadership in digital finance, but this does not mean sacrificing stringent investor protections that make the U.S. stock market the global gold standard." The DeFi Alliance responded that Citadel Securities' letter contained "numerous factual errors and misleading statements." Jennifer Rosenthal, a spokesperson for the DeFi Education Fund, stated that the company is protecting its business interests. Rosenthal said, "It is in Citadel Securities' interest to question the existence of a technology that threatens its business and significant market share."