Chris Chung, CEO and co-founder of DEX aggregator Titan, has called for the crypto industry to establish ethical norms through social consensus, particularly in response to controversies involving political fundraising via meme coins and token launches.

What Happened: In an interview with Benzinga, Chung emphasized the importance of community-driven standards to maintain integrity in the rapidly evolving sector, while also sharing insights on the future of decentralized exchanges, stablecoin legislation and the role of blockchain in financial markets.

Addressing the ethical challenges facing the industry, Chung pointed to the backlash following the Libra fiasco as evidence of the crypto community's ability to self-regulate.

"I think ethical considerations are social ones—if people react strongly against a certain thing, everybody really understands what the line is," he said, highlighting the need for a collective understanding of acceptable practices in token launches and marketing.

He cautioned against relying solely on formal laws, noting, "Crypto enforcement is basically social enforcement—you actually need a government for physical enforcement of laws if you want to codify something more."

Chung's comments come amid a decline in retail investor confidence, driven by significant losses in meme coins like Trump TRUMP/USD and Melania MELANIA/USD, which have contributed to a broader drop in trading volumes, as noted by research firms like Standard Chartered.

However, he sees a silver lining in the meme coin frenzy, particularly for Solana-based platforms like Titan.

"Although meme coin volume has dropped, it made the blockchain itself develop the infrastructure to handle that much volume," Chung explained, adding that Solana's SOL/USD trading volumes have increased fivefold compared to last year, reaching $40 to $50 billion last month despite a mini bear market.

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Why It Matters: Titan, a Solana meta-DEX aggregator, has already launched on mainnet and is currently in private beta, with a couple hundred users providing feedback on live trades.

Chung shared plans to make the platform fully public in the coming months, focusing on infrastructure upgrades to handle growing demand.

He highlighted Titan's unique position in the market, noting that it aggregates quotes from other Solana DEX aggregators like Jupiter JUP/USD and Deepflow, while also using its proprietary algorithm, Talos, which boasts an 80% win rate against competitors.

"The combination of having our own algorithm plus aggregating others is really what makes Titan unique," he said.

Looking at the broader DeFi landscape, Chung expressed optimism about the potential impact of stablecoin legislation, particularly with the U.S. Senate advancing a bill in March 2025 and President Trump pushing a pro-crypto agenda.

He believes clearer regulations could bring more institutional capital into DeFi markets.

"If more of these institutions come on the chain, that means a lot more dollars, a lot more stablecoins have been minted," Chung noted, though he cautioned that DEXs must address liquidity fragmentation among stablecoins to maintain market efficiency.

What’s Next: Chung also sees blockchain technology as a game-changer for traditional finance (TradFi), particularly in the realm of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.

He argued that DeFi could both compete with and serve TradFi by streamlining back-office processes and enabling faster asset settlement.

"Nobody really wants to wait for SWIFT for two days or even T+1 to settle their assets," he said, emphasizing the global demand for accessible assets that blockchain can fulfill.

On the technical side, Chung discussed the role of zero-knowledge (ZK) technology and :Layer-2 (L2) solutions in driving DeFi growth.

While he believes ZK tech needs to mature before it can be widely implemented, he finds its potential applications—like on-chain dark pools and independently verifiable data—fascinating.

Regarding L2s, he noted the ongoing debate between monolithic L1 chains like Solana and Ethereum's ETH/USD L2 roadmap, pointing out that Solana's concentrated volume suggests user preference for a single-chain ecosystem.

Despite the current market challenges, including a mini bear market for Bitcoin BTC/USD and major altcoins like Solana and BNB BNB/USD, Chung remains confident in DeFi's long-term potential.

He believes innovations in on-chain derivatives, such as options and perpetual futures, could mark a maturity moment for the sector, though he cautioned that the crowded perp DEX space may struggle to sustain new entrants without significant differentiation.

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