Protect Developers Or Lose Industry Support

The DeFi Education Fund has penned a letter to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee with support from over 110 crypto builders, investors and advocates urging Congress to “provide robust, nationwide protections for software developers and noncustodial service providers in market structure legislation.”

The letter, which has been signed by the Bitcoin Policy Institute, the Blockchain Association and the Digital Chamber to name a few of the signatories, states that crypto market structure legislation must protect developers if the broader industry is to support it.

“Without such protections, we cannot support a market structure bill,” reads the letter.

The letter draws a line between the regulatory framework that exists for the “traditional, intermediated financial world” and the world of open-source development, which requires protections for developers so as to not force them into “unworkable regulatory categories.”

If the United States is to fulfill President Trump’s vision of becoming the “crypto capital of the world,” states the letter, it must continue to welcome cutting-edge software development in the digital space as it has since the earliest days of the internet.

According to the letter, the total share of open source developers based in the United States dropped from 25% in 2021 to 18% in 2025, which is attributed to a “lack of regulatory clarity for software development.”

The letter expresses gratitude for both the House and the Senate having included language from both the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) and the Keep Your Coins Act that protects developers of noncustodial crypto software in their respective drafts of the CLARITY Act.

It stressed that it’s imperative that these protections be kept in the bill and that “these protections must make explicit that no individual or entity is subject to regulation solely for engaging in activities that are core to creating, developing, publishing, and maintaining blockchain networks, nor for enabling users to access such networks via software interfaces while maintaining custody of their own funds.”

Finally, the letter points out that protecting software developers is a bipartisan issue, highlighting the fact that a bipartisan supermajority of 294 members of the House of Representatives voted in favor of the CLARITY Act, and urges the Senate to improve upon developer protections in its draft of the bill.