In a move to promote a deeper understanding of decentralized finance (DeFi) and Ethereum-based technologies among lawmakers, key players in the DeFi space have launched the Ethereum Protocol Advocacy Alliance (EPAA). Announced on Tuesday, November 5, 2025, the EPAA aims to coordinate policy efforts and educate policymakers on the intricacies of the Ethereum ecosystem.
The alliance comprises prominent names in the DeFi sector, including Aave Labs, Aragon, Curve, Lido Labs Foundation, Spark Foundation, The Graph Foundation, and the Uniswap Foundation. These entities collectively secure over $100 billion in assets through open, non-custodial protocols that operate without intermediaries. Drawing on their practical and technical experience, the EPAA intends to advocate for on-chain solutions to regulatory challenges.
The formation of the EPAA reflects a growing recognition that Ethereum ecosystem stakeholders have a crucial role in educating policymakers. The alliance seeks to balance the "outsized influence" that centralized crypto entities have had in policymaking, ensuring that the principles and technologies underpinning on-chain infrastructure are understood and not overlooked. The Ethereum Foundation supports this community-led coordination on advocacy. Tomasz K. Stańczak, Co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, has expressed support for the EPAA's creation and work.
The EPAA has outlined four key ways it will engage with policymakers:
- Contributing technical expertise
- Producing pragmatic resources to explain technical information
- Coordinating strategic engagement to expand the reach of builder voices
- Identifying areas of common technical interest to align on policy positions
The alliance will collaborate with organizations such as the DeFi Education Fund, the Decentralization Research Center, and the European Crypto Initiative to provide technical input and support ongoing policy development efforts. Amanda Tuminelli, Executive Director of DeFi Education Fund, stated they appreciate EPAA's efforts in advancing crypto policy globally.
The move to create the EPAA comes amid increasing public interest in crypto and growing regulatory scrutiny in the US and Europe. A recent Crypto Survey 2025 by Strategy & PwC revealed that retail investors now allocate between 5% and 20% of their portfolios to digital assets. In the U.S., a DeFi Education Fund and Ipsos survey showed that 56% of Americans want full control over their money and believe they should be able to transfer funds digitally without intermediaries, while 42% said they would participate in DeFi if regulations were clearer.
The EPAA's shared policy framework centers on four key priorities: protecting the neutrality of the protocol layer, ensuring code itself isn't subject to regulation; advancing on-chain transparency as a real-time, verifiable source of compliance; preserving flexibility for innovation by avoiding rigid or overbroad standards; and upholding global access to permissionless, decentralized infrastructure. The alliance aims to ensure laws and regulations accurately reflect how blockchain systems operate, rather than how they are perceived.
