The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is poised to become a primary market regulator for cryptocurrencies and businesses, should legislation pending before Congress become law. And at the beginning of the year, former CFTC Commissioner and Andreessen Horowitz Crypto Head of Policy Brian Quintenz seemed set to take charge of that agency, putting the pro-crypto policymaker at the forefront of writing rules the crypto industry has long sought — that is, until the committee abruptly announced it would postpone the vote on his nomination, twice, eventually saying the White House asked it not to hold the vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee, without further explanation.
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Gemini (GEMI) co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss took credit for pausing and ultimately sinking Quintenz’s nomination, indicating just how much influence the billionaire crypto executives and prominent Trump donors can wield within the current administration while derailing the confirmation process for a regulator much of the rest of the crypto industry wanted to see installed.
“Many in our industry have significant concerns about this nomination,” Tyler Winklevoss told CoinDesk in August, shortly after the confirmation votes were postponed. “Mr. Quintenz is not aligned with the president’s stated agenda and objectives.”
Quintenz, for his part, largely kept quiet about the turmoil surrounding his nomination until September, when he released messages he’d exchanged with Winklevoss, where Winklevoss appeared to ask Quintenz to take a firm position on how the CFTC handled a case against Gemini that was settled in January 2025.
“I believe these texts make it clear what they were after from me,” Quintenz said in a social media post, adding that he believed Winklevoss’s communications with the President misled Trump.
“I know we had spoken about this in the winter where I recalled my original extreme disappointment at [the Enforcement Division] for pursuing this so aggressively,” Quintenz said in one of the messages posted. “I commit to you to having a fair and reasonable review of the matter and the division and individuals involved to determine if they acted inappropriately.”
Despite his push, the White House withdrew his nomination a few weeks later.
