In April, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reopened the comment period for proposed set of rules that would redefine various blockchain protocols as U.S. regulated securities exchanges, a second try at reining in decentralized finance (DeFi) from early 2022. Alongside the SEC’s enforcement-first mindset, this attempt at rulemaking serves as compelling evidence that new U.S. legislation – (perhaps something like the recently published market structure bill sponsored by House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn "GT" Thompson (R-PA) – is sorely needed. Bill Hughes is senior counsel and director of global regulatory matters at ConsenSys.