Decentralised Finance, financial protocols built on public blockchains operating without traditional intermediaries.
DeFi protocols use smart contracts to provide lending, borrowing, trading, derivatives, and asset management without centralised custodians or order books. The regulatory treatment turns on whether a protocol is genuinely decentralised: MiCA Recital 22 and ESMA guidance suggest that fully decentralised protocols without an identifiable operator fall outside MiCA, while front-ends, governance token issuers, and centralised actors typically remain in scope.
EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation governing crypto-asset service providers and stablecoin issuers across the European Union.
Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, a blockchain-based entity governed by smart contracts and token-holder voting.
Self-executing code deployed on a blockchain that automatically enforces the terms of an agreement.