CZ publicly stated on social media: “June 9th will be remembered as DeFi Day.” Following the repeal of the “DeFi Broker Rule,” U.S. crypto regulation has once again broken open a layer of shackles. Consequently, established DeFi tokens like AAVE and UNI have entered a vigorous upward trend.

On June 9th, U.S. time, the speech “DeFi and the American Spirit” by the new SEC Chairman Paul Atkins marks a fundamental shift in the U.S. crypto regulatory logic. Combined with the strategic adjustments of the Ethereum Foundation (EF) and the resonance of market funds, DeFi on the ETH chain is迎来前所未有的结构性机遇. The three core driving forces of regulatory paradigm innovation, institutional capital influx, and technological breakthroughs have jointly constructed the underlying logic for the explosion of DeFi Summer 2.0.

1. Regulatory Easing: The Policy Catalyst of DeFi Summer 2.0

Atkins released three major regulatory signals in his speech on June 9, completely reversing the “enforcement-first” tone of the Gensler era.

First, the SEC has finally recognized the principle of code neutrality. In his speech, Atkins used the analogy that “developers of self-driving cars should not be held responsible for the misuse by third parties” to clearly shift the responsibility from tool developers to users, clearing legal obstacles for the “permissionless innovation” of DeFi protocols. This conclusion directly responds to the Tornado Cash developer case that arose during the previous Democratic administration, lifting the compliance shackles on developers. Within 24 hours after the speech, DeFi blue-chip tokens such as AAVE and UNI surged over 13%, while privacy track tokens like AZTEC rose by 9%, with the market validating the value reassessment effect of regulatory easing.

Second, there is the return of property rights and the legalization of Staking. Atkins emphasized that “the right to manage private property autonomously” is a core American value, clearly supporting users to directly participate in on-chain financial activities through personal wallets. This statement completely ended the Gensler era’s accusations of securitization against liquid staking protocols (LSD) such as Lido and Rocket Pool. The leading LSD track token LDO surged by 11% on that day, while re-staking projects like EigenLayer also saw simultaneous increases, reflecting a reconstruction of institutional confidence in the Staking ecosystem.

Thirdly, the implementation of the innovation sandbox mechanism. Similar to the DFSA in Dubai, the SEC has announced the establishment of an “innovation exemption” framework that allows both registered and non-registered entities to quickly launch on-chain products under compliance conditions. This mechanism provides an officially sanctioned testing ground for RWA (Real World Assets on-chain), accelerating the process of bringing over a trillion dollars worth of off-chain assets on-chain.

2. Core Efforts: The Ethereum Foundation is promoting “Defipunk”

The Ethereum Foundation’s 2030 plan clearly states that it will promote the establishment of an evaluation mechanism for “Defipunk” and facilitate the relevant transformation of DeFi projects.

In the plan, the Ethereum Foundation regards DeFi as the core vehicle for realizing Ethereum’s vision of “permissionless and censorship-resistant”. It clearly promotes DeFi to become the “open financial infrastructure of the digital age” through treasury allocation, technical support, and standard setting. Among its key objectives is to ensure that by 2026, on-chain DeFi allocation accounts for more than 30% of the treasury (excluding core ETH holdings), with a priority on supporting privacy-focused and highly composable protocols.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) promotes the establishment of the “Defipunk” evaluation framework based on the principles of cypherpunk, focusing on core features such as security, openness, financial sovereignty, prioritization of technological solutions, and privacy protection. The aim is to cultivate a censorship-resistant DeFi ecosystem through research, advocacy, and funding allocation to address current challenges in the DeFi ecosystem, such as high Gas fees related to privacy and user experience friction, and to resolve systemic vulnerabilities that currently rely on centralized backdoors, multi-signature mechanisms, and other issues.

Currently, the TVL on the ETH chain has rebounded to 66 billion USD compared to the lows in February and March, showing a good expansion momentum, and is expected to surpass the peak of December 2024 in scale.

Recently, the TVL of AAVE, which has been performing well, is “higher and higher,” with the TVL exceeding 26 billion USD and the staked ETH surpassing 9.3 million.

The UNI, which surged 30% in a single day, has also shown strong performance in recent data. TVL has risen to $5.152 billion, expected to surpass the 24-year high.

3. Institutional Bullishness: ETH remains the top choice in the context of crypto compliance.

On June 11, according to monitoring by farside, there was a net inflow of $26.3 million in FETH yesterday, a net inflow of $9.7 million in Grayscale ETH, and a net inflow of $8.4 million in ETHW. At the same time, the amount of Ethereum staked reached a record high of 34.8 million ETH, accounting for about 28.15% of the circulating supply.

The market expects that the SEC will soon approve an Ethereum ETF that supports staking, as REX Shares has submitted the relevant application. Meanwhile, BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust has not seen any outflows for 23 consecutive trading days.

Recently, Jack Yi, the founder of LD Capital, reiterated his strong bullish stance on Ethereum and its ecosystem tokens. He stated that he currently holds 100,000 ETH options long positions and believes that the reasons for the undervaluation of the Ethereum ecosystem include: the ETH token itself is undervalued, optimistic about the rebound of the ETH/BTC exchange rate during the bull market; after the relaxation of crypto policies, projects with real revenue, users, and products will be the first to benefit from the inflow of traditional capital; Wall Street funds have recently been flowing into Ethereum for accumulation. LD Capital’s Trend Research is also clearly bullish on ETH, currently holding 142,000 ETH, with an unrealized profit of 42.35 million dollars.

The QCP report believes that the implied volatility of Ethereum has risen, with the front-end at-the-money option volatility climbing to around 70%. The skew in the options market has also clearly shifted towards a bullish direction, increasing by 5 to 6 percentage points. The high funding rates for perpetual contracts further reinforce the bullish atmosphere in the market. The inflow of funds into ETFs indicates that institutional interest is returning. This round of capital rotation may suggest that the market narrative is shifting from “Bitcoin is digital gold” to “Ethereum is the infrastructure layer for real-world assets (RWA).”

Looking ahead, macro favorable factors are indeed accumulating momentum for Ethereum. Since the wild growth and regulatory vacuum of the DeFi summer in 2020, the crypto industry has completely immersed itself in a compliant context. With the advancement of the GENIUS Act in the U.S. Senate, Circle launching an IPO, and stablecoins gradually making progress in regulation, Ethereum’s core position in tokenization and settlement infrastructure may usher in structurally unexpected upside potential. Correspondingly, DeFi based on ETH will soar once again.

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