DeFi Leaders Join Hands to Push Ethereum-Friendly Policies

Major decentralized finance stakeholders have joined hands to launch a new initiative aimed at strengthening Ethereum’s position in global regulatory discussions. The Ethereum Protocol Advocacy Alliance (EPAA) has brought together some of the most influential players in the Ethereum ecosystem to educate lawmakers and coordinate policy advocacy. The aim is to educate lawmakers on the importance of having an open decentralized infrastructure, which is incomplete without Ethereum.

According to the EPAA, the centralized crypto companies have held “outsized influence” in regulatory conversations. They often overshadow the core principles that underpin decentralized technology. The alliance stated in its launch announcement, “This imbalance has often left the principles and technologies underpinning onchain infrastructure misunderstood or overlooked.”

The alliance includes Aave Labs, Curve, Spark Foundation, Aragon, Lido Labs, Uniswap Foundation, and The Graph Foundation. All of these companies help secure more than $100 billion in assets through open, permissionless protocols operating without intermediaries. The group says it plans to leverage this expertise to push for regulatory frameworks that protect and nurture decentralized innovation.

The Ethereum Foundation has also thrown its support behind the alliance. Co-executive director Tomasz K. Stańczak called the effort an important step in promoting “community-led coordination on advocacy.”

The move comes amid increasing political activity across the crypto sector. During the latest U.S. election cycle, venture capital giants and centralized exchanges, including a16z, Coinbase, and Ripple, backed Fairshake, one of the industry’s largest political action committees. The PAC raised $260 million, spending nearly $196 million on lobbying and campaign activities, according to OpenSecrets.

The EPAA wants to make sure that decentralised protocols have an equal voice in policy-making, even when there are so many powerful stakeholders. The alliance came up with four main strategies: giving policymakers technical advice, making educational materials easy to find, working together to reach more people, and finding places where stakeholders have similar technical interests.

The advocacy effort comes during a period of expansion for the Ethereum ecosystem. Earlier this month, the Ethereum Foundation updated its grants program, shifting to a more selective funding model. In late October, it also launched institutions.ethereum.org, an initiative designed to help onboard traditional organizations into Ethereum more smoothly.

As regulatory scrutiny continues to grow, the EPAA’s formation signals a coordinated effort to ensure Ethereum’s decentralized ethos is represented in policy decisions that could shape the future of blockchain technology.