Svmuu News: In a report released on Tuesday, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) stated that if identifiable individuals retain “control or sufficient influence” over a DeFi arrangement, its rules apply regardless of the project’s claimed level of decentralization.
The FATF noted that many DeFi projects still frequently exhibit centralized elements in practice, including the centralization of governance tokens, administrative authority, control over upgrades, and fees and rewards flowing to insiders. The report categorizes DeFi into three types: those with identifiable controllers; those that are effectively centralized but whose operators are hidden; and those that are truly leaderless. Only the last category is exempt from its standards.
The report notes that nearly 93% of jurisdictions that responded to the survey have not yet applied the relevant standards to any eligible DeFi arrangements; of 142 jurisdictions, only 26 have assessed the risks, 4 have established licensing rules, and only 2 have ever registered or licensed related platforms.
The FATF calls on countries to require or encourage DeFi projects to embed anti-money laundering controls into smart contracts or user interfaces; for platforms that refuse to cooperate, jurisdictions may, as a last resort, prohibit them from operating locally. The report also states that the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi reached $86.6 billion this year, an increase of approximately 85% compared to 2023.