Blockchain technology promises to provide humanity and freedom with the rise of Web 3.0, a truly decentralized internet. Some even argue that the significant rise of the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has become an important symptom of the conceptual shift from centralized services to decentralized ones, with Web 3.0 being its cornerstone.
Moreover, some even compare the invention of blockchain technology to the revolution brought by the advent of the internet itself. Symbolically, the original source code for the World Wide Web, developed by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, is set to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s on June 23 as a nonfungible token, or NFT. All three of them — NFTs, DeFi and Web 3.0 — are intertwined. But with that internet-blockchain comparison comes a crucial notion: Without proper regulation in the crypto and blockchain space, there will not be the same success in technological innovation as what we saw over the past 25 years, which changed the world as we know it.
It is now becoming obvious that a lack of regulation would harm crypto innovations. As the decentralized technology sector has grown significantly, the space has started to attract increasing attention from regulators globally, which are targeting stablecoins, DeFi, NFTs, crypto assets, smart contracts, unhosted wallets, central bank digital currencies and so on. Meanwhile, some experts such as Caitlin Long, the founder and CEO of Avanti Financial, for example, see the started “crypto regulatory crackdown” as a positive trend, which will only benefit innovators. And others propose “a right way to regulate crypto.”
On the other hand, the current regulation is not suitable for crypto, and adjusting newly emerged decentralized technologies to it might ruin the core values of decentralization, bringing us back to where we started: with the centralized parties in control over the space. Is that the price we are willing to pay in order to become a regulated industry?
Related: Decentralization vs. centralization: Where does the future lie? Experts answer
In order to find the right balance, the crypto space requires a much deeper and closer working relationship that would include both regulators and innovators. Only in a dialogue between crypto businesses and regulators, authorities and industry representatives, will it be possible to find the right way to regulate the emerging tech industry — through smart regulation — and the space that is promising to change our lives — a promise that was fulfilled by proper regulations for the internet at the turn of the last century.
To find out what crypto and blockchain industry representatives think about this regulatory dilemma, Cointelegraph reached out to a number of them to ask for their opinions on the following question: Will crypto lose its core values on the way to being regulated, or will the regulation adapt to decentralized tech and its benefits for society?