Aave Labs, Kamino and Veda submit DeFi lending legal framework to the SEC

The groups argue that decentralized lending protocols and non-custodial vaults fall outside federal securities laws, and they have asked SEC staff for a meeting Aave Labs has taken its case for DeFi lending straight to the regulator. Together with the Kamino Foundation and Veda Tech Labs Inc., it submitted a confidential legal framework to the SEC and requested a meeting with agency staff. The core argument fits on an index card. People who supply assets to a lending protocol, or borrow against their own collateral, are not entering securities arrangements. What the groups sent to the SEC The submission went in on October 26, 2026. It was addressed to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force and to its Division of Corporation Finance. The analysis covers two product types: decentralized lending protocols and non-custodial vaults. Non-custodial means users keep control of their own funds rather than handing them to a company that holds the money for them. The framework tests these products against four pillars of US securities law. The first is the Howey test, the standard used to decide whether an arrangement counts as an investment contract. The second is Reves, the analysis used for debt-like...