Alan Lim

IOSCO’s 2023 policy recommendations on DeFi emphasise the principle of "same activity, same risk, same regulation" to ensure that DeFi arrangements are held to the same standards as traditional financial systems. Against the backdrop of tightening regulations like MiCA and DORA in Europe and growing geopolitical tensions over digital sovereignty, regulators worldwide grapple with the challenge of applying IOSCO's principle to DeFi. How can innovation thrive while addressing critical issues of security, interoperability, and cross-border compliance?

This roundtable brings together regulators, blockchain architects, and financial innovators to explore the evolving role of DeFi and public blockchain infrastructure in global markets.

Key topics include:

1. Global standards and geopolitics
2. Tech neutrality and security in DeFi
3. DeFi and tokenisation: Reshaping capital markets
4. The future of staking and investor protection

Observers can refer to these pre-reading reference materials to prepare for the roundtable:

• BIS: Cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance: functions and financial stability implications: Cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance: functions and financial stability implications
• IOSCO Final Report on DeFi Policy Recommendations (2023): FR14/23 Final Report with Policy Recommendations for Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
• OECD Report: "Why Decentralised Finance (DeFi) Matters and the Policy Implications:
• Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Reshaping Traditional Banking Systems: 5133479.pdf
• Global Standards Mapping Initiative 5.0: DeFi Stand-Alone Report: DeFi-Stand-Alone.pdf
• Project Guardian – Monetary Authority of Singapore: Project Guardian: 2024 Reflections, 2025 Directions

This roundtable examines the potential of public permissionless blockchains to enhance traditional financial services. However, with new opportunities come new risks. These risks, such as operational, reputational and legal risks need to be adequately addressed. The aim of the roundtable is to discuss potential use cases for regulated activities on public permissionless blockchains, the risks involved and how these risks can be mitigated by policymakers, including international and industry standard setters, and regulators.

Participants can familiarise themselves with the topic with the following pre-read materials from the discussants:

• Enhancing financial services with permissionless blockchains - Publications Office of the EU
• guardian-fixed-income-framework.pdf
• Private sector partners join Project Agorá
• Introducing Digital Asset Securities Control Principles (DASCP) - Euroclear

The mentioned discussions of potential use cases for regulated activities on public permissionless blockchains, the risks involved and how these risks can be mitigated by policymakers, including international and industry standard setters, and regulators will be published in a whitepaper.

From private blockchains to public blockchain networks which are permissioned, these enable broad participation. The digital assets network space is evolving rapidly – and new models are emerging, such as open and interoperable shared networks that promise to strike their own balance between transparency, participation, and control.

This panel session will gather leaders in the blockchain space to discuss the future of digital assets networks and which future models will strike the optimum balance.

The proliferation of tokenized financial assets across distinct networks has created significant challenges for both the private and public sectors, including issues of interoperability, scalability, regulatory compliance and security. A base layer foundational digital infrastructure, which facilitates interoperability and supports secure transactions of tokenised assets across such networks, could address these challenges while unlocking new opportunities for economic growth.

Global Layer One (GL1) is a collaborative initiative between the public and private sectors to foster the development of multi-purpose, shared ledger infrastructures, that will facilitate seamless cross-border financial transactions while meeting regulatory expectations. More information about GL1 may be found at

The GL1 Dialogue is a series of in person public-private dialogues to facilitate broader industry engagements around GL1. These dialogues seek to bring together financial institutions and policymakers to discuss and learn about developments in financial and asset tokenisation, and features key milestones and progress under GL1. This roundtable will discuss the regulatory and operational considerations in building an ecosystem of regulatory compliant digital infrastructure for tokenised financial transactions.