The crypto industry’s political machinery just got a new, highly specialized gear. The Defend Developers PAC launched on June 3 as the first political action committee built entirely around one idea: protecting the people who write open-source blockchain software from legal liability.
Led by Gavin Zavatone, founder and policy lead at the DeFi Education Fund, DDPAC plans to raise and deploy over six figures to back incumbents in the upcoming midterm elections who support developer-friendly legislation. Its board reads like a who’s-who of crypto policy circles, with executives from the Solana Policy Institute and Uniswap Labs among its leadership.
The Clarity Act and why developers need a lobby
At the center of DDPAC’s mission sits the Clarity Act, a bill working its way through Senate negotiations that would establish legal protections for developers of open-source software in the decentralized finance space.
Right now, writing code that powers a DeFi protocol could theoretically expose a developer to the same legal liability as someone who operates the financial product built on top of it. The Clarity Act is designed to draw a clear line between building tools and misusing them.
