SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said software developers who publish open-source blockchain code should not be subject to federal securities registration requirements solely because other people use that code. Speaking on Tuesday at the IC3 Blockchain Camp at Princeton, she said publishing DeFi open-source code is generally protected by the First Amendment and warned against automatically applying securities rules designed for centralized financial intermediaries to decentralized blockchain networks. Peirce added that liability should generally rest with individuals engaged in illegal conduct rather than developers who merely release code. The comments go to a longstanding debate over how far securities rules should extend into open-source software, particularly in crypto, where developers often release code that others can deploy or adapt without the original authors controlling later use.