DeFi

DeFi projects do not fit neatly into traditional legal categories.

A protocol may include liquidity pools, lending markets, vaults, staking, leverage, bridges, dApps and interfaces, oracles, contributors and users across multiple jurisdictions. Legal risk can sit in any of these layers: how the protocol is accessed, who controls the interface, who controls the multisig, how value flows, whether tokens are issued, how governance works, who contributes to the code, and what users are able to do.

Legal Counsel for DeFi Protocols and Builders

Aurum has a strong track record advising DeFi projects on protocol structuring, token launches, DAO transitions, contributor protection, fundraising, governance, compliance architecture and cross-border regulatory strategy.

We help clients structure projects, launch products, raise capital, issue tokens, transition to DAOs, manage IP, prepare user documentation, design compliance controls and navigate cross-border regulatory risk. Our work combines legal precision with practical understanding of how DeFi products are built, governed, accessed and scaled.

DeFi-Native Legal Advice

DeFi legal work should follow the protocol. The relevant risks depend on what the protocol does, who contributes to it, whether there is a frontend or managed interface, how liquidity is sourced, how fees are generated, whether tokens are issued, how governance is organised, and whether the project touches regulated activities such as exchange, lending, custody, payments, derivatives, yield, staking or asset management.

We work with DEXes, lending protocols, leverage protocols, vaults, yield products, stablecoin projects, L1 and L2 ecosystems, infrastructure providers, DAOs, token issuers and teams building financial applications on-chain. Clients come to us when they need counsel that can understand the protocol mechanics, technical design and architecture, identify the real legal risk, and turn that into structures, documents and decisions that support launch, fundraising, governance and growth.

We help teams determine where a project can operate through a non-regulated structure, where that position is legally supportable, and where a regulated entity, licensed component or controlled access layer is needed. For many DeFi projects, the answer is not a single entity or a single regulatory position. It is a structure that separates protocol development, governance, treasury, user access, regulated activities and commercial operations into components that can be defended, operated and scaled.

Compliance & Regulations

DeFi operates across a difficult and changing regulatory perimeter. A single protocol may raise issues under securities laws, derivatives regulation, VASP or CASP regimes, AML/CTF rules, sanctions, financial promotion rules, consumer protection, data protection, tax, corporate law and DAO liability principles.

The risk is rarely found in one place. It can sit in the token design, frontend, fee model, governance process, liquidity arrangements, admin keys, contributor activity, treasury operations, marketing materials, restricted jurisdiction controls or the relationship between the protocol, foundation, DAO and service providers.

Aurum helps DeFi projects build legal and compliance structures that can hold across these layers. This includes protocol legal review, jurisdictional strategy, corporate and foundation structures, token issuance documents, user-facing terms, risk disclosures, AML/KYC procedures, DAO wrappers, contributor arrangements, IP and open-source licensing, fundraising documents and regulatory positioning across major markets.