The SEC's Crypto Task Force will have another roundtable next week, where experts will discuss custody — that is, who is allowed to hold customers' digital assets.
Why it matters: How digital value is custodied is probably the most core concept in digital assets — and an issue where regulatory decisions carry high stakes: impacting innovation, and the future role of TradFi vs. crypto-native firms.
Driving the news: Yesterday, the task force announced the next roundtable's lineup of speakers, which leans on firms that specialize in crypto custody.
The lineup favors big centralized companies that secure digital assets for institutions that want to focus on other things.
We see one voice on the panel to speak for self-custody: Exodus Movement Inc. a maker of wallets and related products.
Zoom in: Sid Powell, CEO at Maple Finance, which makes decentralized finance instruments that institutions invest in, tells Axios that he hopes to see a regulatory regime that permits sophisticated asset managers to self-custody.
"If not," he says, "the whole field of DeFi products gets very cut off from traditional asset managers."
Maple Finance just broke a billion dollars in assets held by its smart contracts.
