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The crypto founder going on the offensive in the industry's latest battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) called out a lack of understanding as a big problem among regulators.
Terraform Labs co-founder and CEO Do Kwon, who sued the SEC Friday to quash a recent subpoena, explained to Yahoo Finance at Monday's All Markets Summit that regulators are still learning that some of the code and protocols launched in the sector are no longer controlled by centralized entities, but rather communities.
Declining to comment on the specifics of his latest lawsuit against the SEC, Kwon pointed to the reality of of how new technology is changing how companies like his quickly cede control of projects that are run by token holders.
"I think more broadly there is just an explosion of a lot of different projects that are coming into the crypto industry and usually when there is explosion of a new industry — some of which may not fit in nicely with existing regulatory or incumbent networks — I think that causes a bit of conflict and friction," Kwon said. "Through this dialogue and exchange you generally end up with frameworks that are a little bit more accepting of innovation and change, and we're happy to be part of that dialogue insofar as proper procedures are adhered to."
At issue in Kwon's case were legal disputes over the way he was served at a major crypto conference last month and whether the SEC violated its own rules by targeting Kwon, a South Korean native, after he voluntarily answered questions about the services Terra enables. As the lawsuit documents, the SEC had been inquiring about Terra's Mirror Protocol, which enables trading of "synthetic" assets that mirror real world assets, like stocks.
As the lawsuit further details, the SEC asked for documents that Terraform Labs said would be impossible to provide or unrealistic in scope. Kwon, who likened himself to a toymaker, says Terraform Labs doesn't function like a normal hands-on company after conceiving of products.
"We are creators of these products and once we create them we hand them off to the community, including the entire ownership of the protocols, and I think that takes some time and getting used to," he said. "Regardless of what regulators think of the issue, there’s no change I can make to the Mirror Protocol. So when we say that Mirror is decentralized, it is fully decentralized. There is nothing that the creator can do to sort of cap the growth of the protocol."