Direct from the desk of Dane Williams.
What a monumental waste of everyone’s time Terra (LUNA)'s Do Kwon vs the SEC has become.
Terraform Labs and its CEO Do Kwon have been ordered to comply with subpoenas the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued in its investigation of Terra (LUNA)’s Mirror protocol.
Yikes.
So first of all, what is Terra’s Mirror protocol?
The Mirror Protocol is a DeFi platform that allows users to create and trade “mirrored assets” that they call mAssets.
mAssets can be described as decentralised CFDs, mirroring the price of stocks.
Yes, including major stocks traded on US exchanges, hence catching the SEC’s attention.
But as we see with stablecoins, the SEC is going around in circles.
Not only are they completely wasting their own time, but the time of everyone that they’re supposedly there to protect.
I’m now entirely under the impression that they have zero understanding of how decentralised protocols work, let alone the role they play alongside them.
What a complete and utter clusterfuck the US regulators are continuing to create in a bid to remain relevant.
What a clusterfuk from the SEC indeed
Let’s just save all of our time and cut to the chase.
Why on Earth are the SEC wasting their time and money on decentralised protocols?
Have we completely forgotten that regulators are meant to be on the side of the people?
(Don’t answer that…)
Decentralised protocols have made the way they used to do their job completely mute.
Protocols are untouchable.
Seriously, who the fuck are you going to go after and on what ground?
Even if you get one network host, another is just going to pop up somewhere else.
The decentralised cat is out of the bag.
And there’s no stuffing that fucker back in now!
The quicker that legacy regulators work out that times have changed and become educators rather than regulators, the better it will be for the people.
Educate, don’t protect via regulation.
Why is everything so hard?
Let’s check in on the UniSwap protocol
It’s not even like the Do Kwon vs the SEC case is anything we haven’t seen before.
Do you remember when UniSwap Labs removed tokens from the company’s own centralised front-end?
Again, just to be clear.
This is censoring the UniSwap Labs company’s front-end, not the protocol itself.
So let’s check in on how UniSwap is going?
-Interacts with the UniSwap protocol
Yep, no change.
UniSwap is still powering forward, allowing people to trade without permission, when, where and how they want.
No questions asked, no hoops to jump through.
Exactly as it should be.
Once again, the SEC can go after centralised front-ends owned by individuals within their jurisdiction.
But NOBODY can take away the ability for people to trade via the UniSwap protocol itself.
All they’re doing is enforcing rules on a US-hosted front-end.
The decentralised protocol remains untouched and accessible by front-ends outside of their jurisdiction.
Do Kwon vs the SEC is going to have exactly the same technical outcome.
The decentralised protocol will continue to operate untouched.
Hey SEC, stop wasting everyone’s time
There is however one difference between the cases.
And this one is even more embarrassingly laughable.
So at least the UniSwap Labs guys were American, with a company playing within the US system.
Fair enough.
It’s shit to see banks like JP Morgan closing their accounts and shadow banning them from the legacy system, but they chose to play under those clearly defined rules.
However, and it’s almost hilarious if not so ridiculous, Do Kwon isn’t even a yank.
He is Korean.
Even wilder, Terraform Labs is a company based in Singapore.
I mean come on.
Even if they weren't a decentralised protocol, the SEC don't even have the jurisdiction to shut them down anyway.
So why are we wasting everyone’s time instead of just educating people on the risks vs reward of trading decentralised mirrored assets?
Oh lordie.
Best of probabilities to you.