Recent market and policy events surrounding decentralized finance (DeFi) indicate that the ecosystem is entering an accelerated phase of "institutionalization + technological advancement." Firstly, cooperation and clarity at the regulatory level are changing the external environment for DeFi: Recently, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a transatlantic working group, clearly stating that they will place digital asset regulation and capital market access on the joint agenda, which provides an important signal for cross-border compliance pathways and the accelerated entry of mainstream institutions.
At the same time, macro and on-chain indicators are also reflecting a rebound in confidence: Reports from multiple media outlets indicate that the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has recently increased, showing that capital is once again aggregating towards decentralized protocols, and the market's selective exposure to risk assets has expanded. It is important to note that a rebound in TVL does not equate to a disappearance of risk, but rather indicates that funds are being restructured towards protocols and on-chain layers that are considered more mature or more composable.
In terms of technological routes, Layer-2 (L2) scaling has become key to the sustainable development of DeFi: Different L2 solutions represented by Optimistic rollups and ZK-rollups are enabling more financial primitives and contract combinations by reducing transaction costs and increasing throughput. This change not only improves the user experience in core scenarios such as lending and DEX but also prompts large protocols to consider cross-chain and multi-chain deployments to access broader liquidity pools. Recent actions by mainstream protocols in L2 or multi-chain deployments reflect the trend of "protocols migrating towards liquidity rather than a single chain."
A typical case is that some leading protocols are actively expanding towards exchange incubation or high-performance L2: For example, Aave has announced plans to deploy on the exchange-supported X Layer (and publicly stated plans to launch a related version in the coming weeks). Such collaborations can bring immediate liquidity and user influx, while also tightly binding the protocol ecosystem with the compliance and operational risks of centralized platforms. Observers need to assess the long-term impact of such collaborations on decentralized governance and audit security.
The evolution of policies is also worth noting: The agenda of U.S. regulators for 2025 and discussions at the congressional level are sending dual signals to the market—there are trends towards relaxing certain entry barriers and encouraging financial innovation, as well as strengthening the regulatory framework for stablecoins, trading intermediaries, and cross-border compliance. For DeFi, this means that in the short term, compliance costs and uncertainties coexist, but in the medium to long term, if actionable legal boundaries can be established, it will pave the way for the scaled application of institutional funds and tokenized assets.
In summary, the next phase of the DeFi ecosystem will be shaped by three forces: first, the gradual clarification of the regulatory landscape, providing an institutional foundation for compliance pathways; second, the implementation of Layer-2 and multi-chain technologies, improving usability and expanding capacity; third, the cooperation between protocols and centralized infrastructure, which brings liquidity and product advantages while also raising new issues of governance and custody risk. The advice for participants is to prioritize assessing compliance pathways and contract security while seizing growth opportunities (such as L2 liquidity and new stablecoin applications), avoiding unilateral bets between "speed" and "decentralization/security."
Related: Is it time to buy the dip? Multiple indicators show $112,000 as a local bottom for Bitcoin (BTC).
Original: “DeFi Moves to a New Phase: The Dual Forces of Regulation and Layer-2 Scaling”
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
