DEF’s March Recap

Here’s what the DeFi Education Fund (DEF) has been up to in March. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about a specific activity, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Amanda Tuminelli Joins the Team

On March 14, we announced that Amanda Tuminelli joined DEF as Chief Legal Officer and will lead the organization’s impact litigation and policy efforts.

Prior to joining DEF, Amanda was a lawyer at Kobre & Kim, where she defended clients against criminal and regulatory investigations, government enforcement actions, and large scale litigation. Before Kobre & Kim, she served as a law clerk for the Honorable Ann M. Donnelly of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

To learn more about Amanda, take a look at our announcement post.

Grant to Fight for the Future

On March 20, we were pleased to announce that we are providing an additional $575,000 grant to Fight for the Future, continuing our support for them for the second year of a grassroots advocacy campaign that aims to ensure that protecting human rights is central in DeFi-related policy conversations.

With this funding, Fight for the Future aims to accomplish the following:

• Strengthen the Coalition: Have at least 50 digital rights and social justice organizations join the coalition and increase their supporter list by 10,000.

• Change the Media Narrative: Support and pitch visible, high-quality media stories with a strong public interest perspective.

• Political Reform: Support the enactment of thoughtful policies that protect the privacy of cryptocurrency transactions and promote the independence of DeFi.

• Recruit More Activists: Motivate at least 300,000 people to act, including through contacting decision makers, posting on social media, sharing information with networks and participating in crowdsourced fundraising.

For more information on this grant, please read our blog post on the announcement.

OSTP RFI

We submitted a response to the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (“OSTP”) Request For Information (“RFI”), “Request for Information; Digital Assets Research and Development.” The RFI solicited “public comments to help identify priorities for research and development related to digital assets'' as part of the Biden administration’s effort to engage federal regulatory agencies to further research and implement a comprehensive regulatory framework for the crypto economy.

Media

Print/Online

• The Block: Fighting a digital dollar becomes new conservative crypto cause to champion

  • “While at this point no one could mistake the Biden administration for being particularly enthused by digital assets, the administration’s most recent economic report noted that ‘crypto-assets appear to be here to stay,’” said Miller Whitehouse-Levine, the CEO of DeFi Education Fund, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group in Washington, D.C. “This statement represents an important shift in tone.”

“A CBDC’s potential for misuse is quite potent. It could severely encroach on Americans’ right to financial privacy and enable an unprecedented degree of control over individuals’ private transactions,” Whitehouse-Levine said. “Protecting the right to financial privacy is a non-partisan issue.”

• Semafor: Business Newsletter

  • "No company has tried harder to productively engage with the agency. The SEC's crusade will only continue to encourage Americans to transition to businesses in off-shore jurisdictions, and the consequences of that should be predictable given the multiple collapses of 2022." - Miller Whitehouse-Levine, CEO, DeFi Education Fund

• Capitol Account: Coinbase Enforcement Warning Shows Gensler is Nearing His Crypto Endgame

  • Miller Whitehouse-Levine, policy director of the DeFi Education Fund, argues there’s a pretty clear legal strategy at hand: “Sending a bunch of Wells notices – my understanding is that it’s been dozens this year alone – moves the needle. It sends a message and can change behavior. So it’s a relatively low-cost regulatory tool…The general strategy here is that I think Gensler has decided that crypto and crypto businesses in the United States are a net negative for the United States, and he is going to act on that.”

• POLITICO: Bipartisan duo of dealmakers heads to K Street

  • Amanda Tuminelli has joined DeFi Education Fund as chief legal officer. She was previously a principal at Kobre & Kim.

Blog Posts

• The DeFi Education Fund Provides an Additional Grant to Fight For the Future

For up-to-date information about what’s happening in D.C. and what we are up to, please follow us on Twitter @fund_defi and subscribe to our Substack.