Latest DeFi News

Latest DeFi news, web3 and AI, find out what’s dominating this market trend. This article is updated once a month.

Latest DeFi News – if you’ve been keeping up to date with DeFi news, here’s a summary of what we’ve been up to.

Latest DeFi News:

Summer 2025: Regulation, Lending Boom, and TradFi Convergence

1. SEC Introduces « Innovation Exemption » for DeFi Projects

In a landmark announcement on June 9, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins unveiled the concept of an “innovation exemption” during the agency’s roundtable titled “DeFi and the American Spirit.” This exemption aims to provide a safe legal environment for DeFi protocols to operate and innovate without facing immediate regulatory penalties.

Inspired by global regulatory sandboxes, the innovation exemption would allow DeFi projects to launch under a provisional status with reduced legal friction while still complying with basic investor protection rules. According to Atkins, the SEC wants to support “the autonomy of financial participants, the right to self-custody, and the spirit of open-source innovation.”

This marks a major shift from the SEC’s previous enforcement-heavy approach, and aligns with a broader bipartisan movement in Congress toward DeFi-friendly legislation, including bills like the STABLE Act (stablecoin oversight) and the GENIUS Act (clarifying digital asset frameworks).

2. Lending Protocols Surge Past $55 Billion in TVL

The decentralized lending market has exploded in Q2 2025, with Total Value Locked (TVL) doubling to $55 billion, according to a report from Ainvest. Lending platforms now account for the majority of DeFi’s locked value, driven by institutional adoption and stablecoin collateral strategies.

Aave leads the market with over $16.5 billion in active loans, followed by Morpho, Spark, and Compound. Yield opportunities on dollar-pegged assets like USDC, USDT, and DAI have been a key growth driver.

However, analysts are warning of growing leverage risk. With more users borrowing against volatile assets to chase yield, the risk of mass liquidations looms large in case of a sudden market drop.

3. TradFi and DeFi Begin to Merge

In an unexpected but powerful signal, JPMorgan launched a pilot program in partnership with Chainlink and Base (Coinbase’s L2) to experiment with real-world asset tokenization and on-chain settlement. The initiative is seen as a watershed moment in DeFi–TradFi integration.

This is part of a broader trend: with spot Bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and WisdomTree already integrated into traditional finance, DeFi infrastructure is starting to power real institutional flows, rather than operating in a parallel ecosystem.

4. Regulatory Landscape Becomes DeFi-Friendly

2025 is shaping up to be the year of regulatory clarity. The SEC’s new task force, Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity, is organizing DeFi-focused consultations, and both the SEC and CFTC now distinguish between protocol contributors and centralized intermediaries. Importantly, node validators and liquidity providers are no longer automatically labeled as « brokers. »

Europe is following suit, with MiCA’s full enforcement kicking in, along with the DORA framework, providing clearer guidelines for DeFi-based applications and services.

Bottom line: DeFi Is No Longer a Niche

The combination of:

• Pro-innovation regulation

• Exploding TVL in lending

• Institutional TradFi onboarding

• Clearer legal frameworks

…has transformed the DeFi landscape. What was once seen as an experimental sector is now becoming a core pillar of financial infrastructure.

If early 2020s were about testing DeFi’s technological promise, 2025 is about DeFi’s maturation into real, regulated finance.