A number of cryptocurrency and blockchain associations advocating for the business are pushing for a “immediate affirmation” of Brian Quintenz as chair of the US Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC).
In a Wednesday letter to US President Donald Trump, representatives from a number of crypto organizations reiterated their help for Quintenz’s affirmation within the Senate following the president’s nomination.
Signatories included the Crypto Council for Innovation, Blockchain Affiliation, Decentralization Analysis Heart, DeFi Training Fund, The Digital Chamber, Satoshi Motion Fund and Solana Coverage Institute
The advocacy organizations argued that Quintenz was “exceptionally well-suited” to go the CFTC partially as a result of his expertise with and understanding of digital property.
After being nominated to chair the company in February, he was referred to the Senate Agriculture Committee, which delayed a vote days earlier than the chamber was scheduled to interrupt for an August recess.
The committee mentioned that the delay got here following a request from the White Home. An August report additionally steered that Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss pressed Trump to rethink Quintenz’s nomination, claiming he wouldn’t totally enact the president’s crypto agenda as CFTC chair.
“Because the Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets Report clearly articulated, the CFTC has many essential, complicated, and nuanced targets forward of it, together with working with Congress to ascertain a complete federal market construction framework with applicable oversight of digital asset commodities, with a view to advance your Administration’s agenda,” mentioned the letter, including that:
Putting in a everlasting Chairman to the CFTC is completely essential to realizing these targets […]”
Quintenz beforehand served as a CFTC commissioner underneath Trump from 2017 to 2021, having been nominated by former US President Barack Obama in 2016.
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Even when Quintenz’s affirmation have been to maneuver rapidly by means of the Senate as soon as the chamber returns from recess on Sept. 3, the regulator nonetheless has vacancies that would gradual its work associated to crypto and in any other case. Presently, the five-member panel of commissioners is staffed solely by appearing CFTC Chair Caroline Pham, and Commissioner Kristin Johnson.
Commissioners Summer time Mersinger and Christy Goldsmith Romero, in addition to former chair Rostin Behnam, departed the CFTC earlier this 12 months. Johnson mentioned she would depart earlier than 2026, and Pham mentioned she deliberate to maneuver to the personal sector if Quintenz have been nominated, suggesting that the potential chair may very well be the only real voice till Trump picked different candidates to workers the company.
In an announcement to Cointelegraph, a consultant for the Crypto Council for Innovation highlighted the necessity to affirm CFTC management amid the two-commissioner panel, no everlasting chair, and pending laws for crypto market construction.
Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of many lead voices pushing for the chamber to go market construction, mentioned the invoice — which may make clear the roles the CFTC and Securities and Alternate Fee can have over crypto — shall be signed into regulation earlier than 2026.
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