No-Action Letter Ignites DePIN Boom: Peirce and the Regulator’s Ballet

In the marble-choked corridors of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a document slid onto the desk like a solemn guest at a provincial wedding-impressive, a touch pompous, and somehow persuasive enough to jingle the coins in every clerk’s purse.

SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce entered the scene with the gravity of a university professor who has discovered a new way to sort brooms by the color of their bristles. She warned that an overzealous hand could smother the newborn DePIN-the decentralized physical infrastructure networks-while the rest of the room whispered about tokens, bandwidth, and the sweet taste of regulatory clarity. 😂

Peirce Warns Overreach Could Stifle Innovation

Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) are described with the relish of a new market stall: curious devices humming in chorus, a city’s arteries redrawn as tokens, and the promise that money might ride along without being the master. In a statement dated Sept. 29, she invoked the Division of Corporation Finance’s no-action letter regarding Doublezero’s token distributions, arguing that such models show how regulators can watch with a lamp rather than a cudgel, and that Congress did not intend the entire economy to bow to a single statute. She reminded the room that the SEC was created to oversee securities markets, not to police every twitch of economic choreography.

“Today’s no-action letter from the Division of Corporation Finance concerning Doublezero’s token distributions designed to facilitate the programmatic functioning of a decentralized physical infrastructure network (i.e., DePIN) offers an opportunity to reflect on how we, as regulators, can foster innovation without expanding our reach beyond what Congress has mandated.”

She outlined that DePIN tokens serve as incentives for providing tangible resources-bandwidth, storage, energy-rather than as speculative talismans designed to lure capital from afar.

Because participants earn rewards through active contributions, she noted, these tokens lack the hallmarks of securities and do not satisfy the Howey Test. The scene, one might remark, is a curious theater: if you earn while building, you are not selling a promise, but stitching the city’s lifeblood. 🤖😅

Moreover, she warned that treating such projects as securities would hinder the development of distributed service networks and slow blockchain’s broader embrace. Markets, not mandarins, should decide whether these efforts prosper. Peirce concluded that the SEC’s duty is to listen to innovators, apply its mandate with precision, and avoid forcing every new invention into antiquated frames. The Doublezero no-action letter, she argued, shows how restraint can allow builders to focus on real-world innovation rather than drowning in compliance burdens. 😉

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2025-10-02 01:03