A number of cryptocurrency and blockchain associations advocating for the trade 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 assist 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 move the CFTC partially attributable to his expertise with and understanding of digital belongings.
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 instructed 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 totally essential to realizing these targets […]”
Quintenz beforehand served as a CFTC commissioner beneath 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 had been to maneuver shortly via the Senate as soon as the chamber returns from recess on Sept. 3, the regulator nonetheless has vacancies that might gradual its work associated to crypto and in any other case. At present, the five-member panel of commissioners is staffed solely by performing 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 go away earlier than 2026, and Pham mentioned she deliberate to maneuver to the personal sector if Quintenz had been nominated, suggesting that the potential chair could possibly be the only voice till Trump picked different candidates to employees the company.
In a press release to Cointelegraph, a consultant for the Crypto Council for Innovation highlighted the necessity to verify 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 cross market construction, mentioned the invoice — which might make clear the roles the CFTC and Securities and Change Fee can have over crypto — can be signed into legislation earlier than 2026.
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