Welcome to Crypto Long & Short, our institutional newsletter. This week, we focus on protecting the people building DeFi infrastructure. By Jennifer Rosenthal, chief communications officer at the DeFi Education Fund, we explore the need to safeguard the technology and infrastructure that makes DeFi valuable.
With traditional finance companies embracing DeFi-related initiatives, it's essential to defend high-level policy objectives. For instance, the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act of 2026 aims to protect software developers from misclassification under criminal code. Meanwhile, Alexis Sirkia, chairman and co-founder of Yellow Network, argues that Ethereum's scaling problem was never about throughput, but rather about how value moves between participants.
He suggests that state channels, which enable peer-to-peer transactions off-chain, could be a solution. This week's headlines also highlight the growing connection between traditional finance and the crypto sector, as well as the impact of smart contract exploits on the market.