Not sure i agree with this analysis. The key aspect you are missing here, and the reason why regulators are able to take immediate action against the DeFi players they have, is the fact that derivatives are and have always been regulated, same with a number of credit services or managed funds services (which is the pooling of any money). If you offer a virtual exposure in a crypto, or a leverage version of a crypto or anything that gives you exposure to an underlying asset, it is a derivative. There are also ways you can creep into those other regulated products as well without knowing. It therefore requires a licence to offer it or even market it to anyone. Marketing btw includes just having a website. The next thing regulators will do is regulate the crypto asset itself which is the only aspect they are currently missing. What you will then find is no global companies (payment providers, search engines such as google, social media sites etc) will do business with you unless you can demonstrate you have the appropriate licence because the regulators will go after them for facilitating the business. That last part may not be a problem because you can advertise other ways but you've pretty much just blocked off a big chunk of your client base. You might also think, what's the big deal, make them come after me. Providing unlicensed services to clients means not only a large fine and potential jail time it also means that regulators can force you to unwind any and all transactions undertaken with impacted clients. This is why those entities are acting pretty quick to be friendly with regulators.
Not sure i agree with this analysis. The key aspect you are missing here, and the reason why regulators are able to take immediate action against the DeFi players they have, is the fact that derivatives are and have always been regulated, same with a number of credit services or managed funds services (which is the pooling of any money). If you offer a virtual exposure in a crypto, or a leverage version of a crypto or anything that gives you exposure to an underlying asset, it is a derivative. There are also ways you can creep into those other regulated products as well without knowing. It therefore requires a licence to offer it or even market it to anyone. Marketing btw includes just having a website. The next thing regulators will do is regulate the crypto asset itself which is the only aspect they are currently missing. What you will then find is no global companies (payment providers, search engines such as google, social media sites etc) will do business with you unless you can demonstrate you have the appropriate licence because the regulators will go after them for facilitating the business. That last part may not be a problem because you can advertise other ways but you've pretty much just blocked off a big chunk of your client base. You might also think, what's the big deal, make them come after me. Providing unlicensed services to clients means not only a large fine and potential jail time it also means that regulators can force you to unwind any and all transactions undertaken with impacted clients. This is why those entities are acting pretty quick to be friendly with regulators.