The Ontario Securities Commission is keeping an eye on the growth of investing, transacting and lending on DeFi platforms, according to a draft document outlining the regulator’s priorities for the coming year. (The Logic)

Talking point: The OSC and other Canadian securities regulators have been cracking down on unregistered cryptocurrency-trading platforms since March, following explosive growth in the sector. The view of Canadian regulators is that while the most popular cryptocurrencies are not themselves securities, the contracts into which many trading platforms enter with customers are. The rise of DeFi—a term used to describe blockchain-based services that recreate financial-system infrastructure such as trading and lending—complicates things further. How do you regulate decentralized exchanges, which execute peer-to-peer trades automatically and don’t have a company or person behind them? The U.S. is currently grappling with this question, and this document suggests the OSC is starting to, as well.