the trick here is that he's citing FTX and Fidelity as examples of "centralized", but he also seemingly thinks any blockexplorer/JSON object generator is "centralized" if any aspect of it is hosted by anyone anywhere
mere websites must not be regulated broker/dealers
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etherscan must not be required to be registered as a broker dealer, merely because it "faciltiates" trades by displaying data & helping generate a JSON object
same is true of more specialized block explorers that pertain to more limited data
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so if you look at the updated blog post (ftxpolicy.com/posts/possible) I actually call out etherscan explicitely as something that shouldn't count; thanks for pointing out that my prior language could have been read that way!
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but every DeFi website is just a specialized version of etherscan; I don't see how you can coherently draw the line between them
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In the end there isn't an extremely clear line, and that sucks, but it's also the truth
for some extremes:
a) etherscan.io isn't a broker
b) if Robinhood routed some of its ETH to a DEX, it'd still have to KYC its users
where exactly do you draw the line? idk
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I'm glad you admit you don't know--I think the difficulty of drawing this line is exactly why it's not a good policy approach.
Eager to discuss more.
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here is another idea for drawing the line; I'm surprised it has not been mentioned by others
professional RPC nodes that perform a broadcasting function on behalf of users are much closer to intermediaries than mere websites, and run much more profitable biz than mere DeFi sites
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the difference between a) and b) is clearly custody of the user funds, etherscan does not have it (nor any real DeFi interface) Robinhood does.
Is that not a pretty bright and clear line?
I haven’t seen you respond to this point yet and it’s been brought up many times.
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Web DEX front ends can harm users (eg fraud), so the relevant questions are:
1) Should the law deal with the risks ex ante ("regulation") or just ex post ("litigation")?
2) If ex ante: how? It doesn't seem to me FCM or broker-dealer regime is appropriate for DEX front ends
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But it's also too quick to say that just because FCM/broker-dealer regimes don't fit DEX front ends, *no ex ante* regulation could be beneficial.
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