The U.S. Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee is poised to develop into a major market regulator for cryptocurrencies and companies, ought to laws pending earlier than Congress develop into regulation. And at the start of the yr, former CFTC Commissioner and Andreessen Horowitz Crypto Head of Coverage Brian Quintenz appeared set to take cost of that company, placing the pro-crypto policymaker on the forefront of writing guidelines the crypto business has lengthy sought — that’s, till the committee abruptly introduced it could postpone the vote on his nomination, twice, finally saying the White Home requested it to not maintain the vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee, with out additional clarification.
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Gemini (GEMI) co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss took credit score for pausing and in the end sinking Quintenz’s nomination, indicating simply how a lot affect the billionaire crypto executives and outstanding Trump donors can wield throughout the present administration whereas derailing the affirmation course of for a regulator a lot of the remainder of the crypto business needed to see put in.
“Many in our business have important issues about this nomination,” Tyler Winklevoss informed CoinDesk in August, shortly after the affirmation votes had been postponed. “Mr. Quintenz is just not aligned with the president’s said agenda and aims.”
Quintenz, for his half, largely saved quiet in regards to the turmoil surrounding his nomination till September, when he launched messages he’d exchanged with Winklevoss, the place Winklevoss appeared to ask Quintenz to take a agency place on how the CFTC dealt with a case in opposition to Gemini that was settled in January 2025.
“I imagine these texts make it clear what they had been after from me,” Quintenz stated in a social media put up, including that he believed Winklevoss’s communications with the President misled Trump.
“I do know we had spoken about this within the winter the place I recalled my unique excessive disappointment at [the Enforcement Division] for pursuing this so aggressively,” Quintenz stated in one of many messages posted. “I decide to you to having a good and cheap overview of the matter and the division and people concerned to find out in the event that they acted inappropriately.”
Regardless of his push, the White Home withdrew his nomination a number of weeks later.
