The founder of MakerDAO warned about the problems of DeFi in the EU.

Founder of MakerDAO Rune Christensen stated that European financial regulators will “most likely” interpret DeFi interfaces to require a MiCA license.

Heard today that there’s a good chance all EU national financial regulators will interpret DeFi frontends to require a MiCA license. This would make DeFi frontends on normal internet domains, as we know them today, impossible. Only fully decentralized, local, downloaded frontends…

— Rune (@RuneKek) April 3, 2024

“This would make DeFi interfaces on normal internet domains, as we know them today, impossible. Only fully decentralized, local, downloaded interfaces or online versions with full KYC compliance. Sad,” he wrote.

According to Christensen, the problem will only affect users in the EU, but will bring them back to the “stone age.”

Co-founder of Trading Strategy protocol Mikko Ohtamaa noted that there is no law in the EU to regulate the DeFi sector.

As this is not part of any EU regulation (MiCA, AMLD) I dug up the source of this. The EU parliament specifically voted to exclude DeFi.

This is from FATF guidance 2023. All national regulators are FATF members. FATF is unelected, opaque, non-political organisation led by the… pic.twitter.com/jL47KuBXow

— Mikko Ohtamaa (@moo9000) April 3, 2024

According to him, the problem mentioned by MakerDAO’s founder is part of FATF guidance in 2023. He emphasized that although all national regulators are members of the group, the group itself is an unelected, opaque, non-political organization led by the US.

“National regulators must act in their own interests, and the best interest is not to blindly follow FATF recommendations (the US itself ignores them),” wrote Ohtamaa.

On April 20, 2023, the European Parliament approved MiCA. On May 16, it was approved by the EU Council. New rules for stablecoins will come into force on June 30, 2024, and the rest on December 30, 2024.