Safeguarding DeFi Infrastructure Builders

Welcome to Crypto Long & Short, our institutional newsletter. This week, we explore the need to safeguard the people behind DeFi infrastructure. By Jennifer Rosenthal, chief communications officer at the DeFi Education Fund, we learn about the growing importance of protecting open-source, permissionless, and programmable technology. The DeFi Education Fund invites you to join them in defending key policy objectives, including software developer protections. Recently, the bipartisan Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act of 2026 was introduced to protect software developers from misclassification under criminal code. The bill clarifies that Section 1960 applies only to those controlling customer assets and transmitting funds on behalf of customers. In another article, Alexis Sirkia discusses how Ethereum's L2 strategy is failing due to a fundamental design flaw, and how state channels can provide a solution by allowing peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries. The newsletter also covers this week's headlines, including the impact of smart contract exploits on the market and Aave's market share slide after the rsETH exploit.