Seven Ethereum protocols have launched the Ethereum Protocol Advocacy Alliance (EPAA) to allow users to self-custody and transact without intermediaries. The coalition will defend core infrastructure securing over $100 billion in on-chain assets without intermediaries.
According to a release sent to Cryptonews, the consortium comprises Aave Labs, Aragon, Curve, Lido Labs Foundation, The Graph Foundation, Spark Foundation and Uniswap Foundation.
The initiative represents a milestone in collective advocacy aimed at influencing public policy to support Ethereum’s decentralized ecosystem and its users worldwide.
“Decentralization is the foundation of Ethereum’s credibility and resilience,” said Sam Kim, Chief Legal Officer of Lido Labs Foundation. “Through the EPAA, we’re ensuring that policy recognizes and protects this principle.”
The alliance comes amid escalating public adoption of digital assets, with retail crypto portfolio allocations rising between 5% and 20%, per the Crypto Survey 2025 by Strategy & PwC.
At a time when protocol infrastructure is underrepresented, misunderstood, and often overlooked, the team of protocols will make sure regulation reflects how on-chain protocols work in practice.
“We’ve seen firsthand the technical and practical complexity involved in building on-chain systems,” said Anthony Leutenegger, CEO of Aragon. “Bringing together most credible protocol teams will help ensure regulatory outcomes are workable for the builders moving this space forward.”
Further, a recent poll revealed that Americans want personal control over their assets. Per the DeFi Education Fund and Ipsos research, 56% of Americans were interested in self-custody. While over half agree that people should be able to send it digitally without intermediaries.
The EPAA will collaborate with aligned organizations, including the DeFi Education Fund, Decentralization Research Center, and European Crypto Initiative, the release read. The collaboration will amplify pragmatic technical expertise in ongoing advocacy efforts.
“At the Decentralization Research Center, we see the Ethereum Protocol Advocacy Alliance as a vital step toward ensuring that those who build decentralized systems also help shape the rules that govern them,” said the center’s executive director, Connor Spelliscy.
Besides, the protocol alliance champions four key principles: preserving the neutrality of protocol code from regulatory interference, advancing on-chain transparency as a compliance tool, safeguarding innovation by preventing overly rigid rules, and maintaining global, permissionless access to DeFi infrastructure.
The group operates as a flexible, coalition-based entity without formal leadership or a fixed budget.
