The Trump Administration withdrew Brian Quintenz as a nominee to fill the chair position at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), The Hill reported late Tuesday. The withdrawal comes weeks after Quintenz shared Signal communications with the co-founders of a crypto exchange in which he suggested they were trying to “undermine” his nomination.
The conversation Quintenz shared included Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, though only Tyler participated in the conversation, according to the screenshots revealed. The twins created crypto exchange Gemini and have close ties with President Trump.
The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry held a confirmation hearing in June, and twice votes were scheduled and canceled. Tuesday night, Quintenz’s hopes to fill the vacant position ended. At the same time, the Trump Administration pulled conservative economist E.J. Antoni from consideration to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Gambling stakeholders have been closely watching the CFTC nominee and confirmation process as prediction markets have blossomed since last fall. In particular, Kalshi began offering sports event contracts ahead of the Super Bowl and has been disrupting the legal wagering space ever since.
Crypto.com, in partnership with Underdog, is also offering sports event contracts, and Polymarket and PredictIt have plans to launch in the U.S. In addition, legal sports betting market leader FanDuel in August announced a deal with derivatives marketplace CME to launch a prediction market.
SEC chair among other potential nominees
In recent weeks, several other potential nominees have turned up, the latest being lawyer Josh Sterling of the Milbank firm. Semafor reported Sept. 23 that Sterling, who has represented Kalshi in its cases against the states of Nevada, Maryland, and New Jersey, was being vetted. Sterling worked for the CFTC between 2019-21.
Others include current Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins, which could put Atkins in charge of two government agencies. Monday, the SEC and CFTC held a joint roundtable discussion about how the two agencies could better “harmonize” on the regulatory front. Kalshi founder Tarek Mansour and Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan participated in a panel, but the subject of sports event contracts was not addressed.
Should Atkins get the nomination, it would represent new territory for the government and may not even be legal. Per the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, “no commissioner shall engage in any other business, vocation, or employment than that of serving as commissioner.”
The first names that surfaced as Quintenz’s nomination was tanking were Michael Selig, chief counsel to the SEC’s crypto task force, and Tyler Williams, counselor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on digital asset policy, according to a Bloomberg report.
Per the WSJ, the Trump White House said it would announce a new nominee in the near future but did not indicate a specific timeline.
