A report concerning emails sent by CFTC chair nominee Brian Quintenz and his expected chief of staff has been “making the rounds on the Hill,” a leading cryptocurrency commentator said, amid repeated delays to the Senate committee vote on Quintenz’s nomination.
The emails, first published in Substack newsletter The Closing Line, include Quintenz’s presumptive Chief of Staff Kevin Webb asking the CFTC’s general counsel to hold a “briefing” with Quintenz on topics including, “seriatims in circulation, employees on administrative leave, list of open applications, and ARRP submissions.” A seriatim is a vote on a matter taken by the CFTC without holding a full deliberation on the matter beforehand. “ARRP submissions” refers to downsizing and restructuring plans.
In a further email, the sender asks about the CFTC’s decision to allow PredictIt to expand its offering of political trades, and how the action was taken. The name on the email was redacted, but The Closing Line said, “the scope of TCL’s FOI request means that the email is from Quintenz.” PredictIt July 15 agreed to a less restrictive deal with the CFTC in order to relaunch in the U.S.
The emails may raise questions about potential conflict-of-interest matters as Quintenz is still a director and shareholder of Kalshi, which is regulated by the CFTC, and may have received information or discussed matters concerning Kalshi or its competitors.
Quintenz promised to step down from Kalshi’s board and divest his shares if he becomes CFTC chair, but — having not yet been confirmed — has not done so yet.
During a hearing on Quintenz’s nomination in June, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker questioned Quintenz over his ties to a company he will be regulating, as well as the company’s hiring of Donald Trump, Jr. as a special advisor.
“I hope you can appreciate that there will be some real questions about your role,” Booker said.
The information was published two days before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry was due to meet to vote on whether to nominate Quintenz as CFTC chair. However, the vote was ultimately removed from the schedule with just two hours’ notice, at the White House’s request.
The vote had previously been rescheduled once before, reportedly due to one senator’s delayed flight.
Blog may have influenced White House
Eleanor Terrett, host of the Crypto America podcast, wrote in a post on social media site X that The Closing Line report was “making the rounds on the Hill and in crypto lobbying circles.”
“To be clear, it’s not known whether the blog post — published Saturday — influenced the White House’s Monday decision, but there’s speculation on the Hill that it may have been a contributing factor,” Terrett’s X post said.
According to Bloomberg, Quintenz is still the White House’s pick to lead the commodities regulator. However, the committee has not yet announced a new time for a vote.
