A CFTC Chair Nomination on the Horizon?👀🌅
A working list of who’s being considered.
Hey! I’m Veronica Irwin, Unchained’s regulatory reporter.
Almost immediately after breaking the news about Trump’s SEC Chair nominee Paul Atkins last week, my editor, the indefatigable Laura Shin, had a request: “let’s report the hell out of the CFTC.”
So that’s what I’ve been doing — or at least, trying to. Admittedly there’s a lot less chatter about the CFTC Chair than there was SEC, probably because sitting CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam hasn’t made an enemy out of the crypto industry half as much as SEC Chair Gary Gensler. But the SEC’s “little sister” agency could be more important than the SEC next year, especially if Congress manages to pass market structure legislation as rapidly as some members of Congress have promised to (this is something Eleanor Terrett over at Fox Business has been reporting on a lot lately).
Despite the relative quiet, I’ve been able to cobble together a working list of names, some of which seem more likely than others. It’s a little fuzzy, so think of it like your CFTC chair status update.
Who Will Be Trump’s CFTC Chair? There's a New Top Contender for the Role
If cryptocurrencies are declared commodities, the CFTC could have a lot of influence over the industry.
Now that Trump has announced his picks to lead the SEC, Paul Atkins, and his AI and Crypto Czar, David Sacks, the last major nomination that could have a big impact on crypto is Trump’s choice for CFTC Chair.
That said, hardly anybody is willing to make a call on when to expect Trump’s announcement, and there isn’t a particularly strong consensus on who the top choices are. However, some candidates’ names are picking up steam in the lobbying and policy circles, mostly former and current commissioners and staff of the agency.
That said, one name was previously discounted but has now become a top contender: former CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz.
An Uncertain State of Play
It’s unclear whether Trump will make his pick in the next few weeks or next few months. Digital Chamber President Cody Carbone explained on the Unchained podcast last week that he did not think the Trump transition team was even close to making a pick, pointing out that the CFTC chair under Trump’s first term, Chris Giancarlo, wasn’t nominated until March. While some sources who spoke to Unchained seemed confident about who was on the short list, others were hesitant to even name names.
That’s partly because there’s less sleuthing going on amongst lobbyists and other crypto policy advocates to figure out who the CFTC Chair is at all. Despite the fact that it very well could have significant oversight over crypto if most tokens are declared commodities rather than securities — a perspective many expect Atkins to take, and something which could also be encouraged by a market structure bill passed through Congress — the CFTC is generally seen as a less powerful agency than the SEC. A SEC Chair nomination, which can impact the stock market, is just not as politically important or exciting as a CFTC Chair. For this reason, not as many powerful securities lawyers and business experts are typically interested in the job, either.
Read More: David Sacks as A.I. & Crypto Czar? Why the Industry Was Surprised
For what it's worth, the sources closest to the transition team and various other groups vetting candidates, like Project 2025 and the America First Policy Institute, aren’t aware of any candidates having gone to or been invited to Mar-a-Lago before this week. One, however, says interviews are today and tomorrow.
A New Top Contender: Brian Quintenz
Former CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz, who is currently the Head of Policy at a16z crypto, is emerging as a top pick. While many in DC circles had written him off weeks ago as someone uninterested in the job (his current gig is pretty desirable), some reliable sources seem to think he’s back in the running — and if he is, there’s good reason to think he’d be an exciting choice to the president-elect.
For one, he’s reportedly been advising the Trump transition team on crypto policy for at least the past few weeks. Second, his boss, Marc Andreessen, and Crypto and AI Czar David Sacks run in the same conservative, venture capitalist, Silicon Valley circles (as Andreessen explained on the Joe Rogan podcast two weeks ago), and it’s fair to assume someone who Andreessen sees as smart and capable would be viewed similarly by Sacks. Of course, his resume also speaks for itself, as a former Trump nominee (who the president-elect had to nominate twice since Trump rescinded the first one) to the commission.
One factor that might work against him, however: he’s currently a board member at the prediction market platform Kalshi, which has been at odds with the competitor prediction market, crypto darling and Trump family favorite, Polymarket.
The Most Discussed Candidate
CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger is on everybody’s list. All five experts who were willing to give Unchained a working list of who they believe is in contention said she is a top pick, and even those who weren’t said she’d be a reasonable choice, just on the merits of her resume. A former top aide to Senate majority leader John Thune, Mersinger has been a strong defender of crypto while at the commission, and a frequent speaker at crypto policy events.
A known quantity amongst the other commissioners and CFTC staff, Mersinger is reliably conservative but reasonable, and would have a relatively easy time leading the charge for the CFTC to write rules of the road for crypto compared to some other more controversial picks. Also, because she’s already a commissioner, she wouldn’t need to go through the Senate confirmation process — Trump could unilaterally make the decision to elevate her to chair.
Sources in Disagreement Over These Candidates
Then, there’s two names to which sources have very, very mixed reads. The first is Commissioner Caroline Pham, also a reliable crypto advocate who often shares similar perspectives on the technology to Mersinger. One source close to both the CFTC and people who have Trump’s ear on such matters insisted she was a candidate for the same reasons as Mersinger, while two others insisted she was definitively not being considered. (Others just said they hadn’t heard her name). Sources who understood her to not be a contender weren’t sure why, but one more neutral source suggested it could have something to do with the optics of photos she posted on X of her with Sam Bankman-Fried.
Others active in crypto policy issues disagree about the photo, however. “The photo is a non issue because at the moment when the picture was taken, he was taking pictures with everyone,” said MoonPay enterprise president Keith Grossman, who says he believes that Pham is being considered citing industry conversations. “If you told me she was at a Diddy party, I would be more concerned.”
“Any insinuation that a photo that she took during her first week on the job with a figure who was also pictured with half of Washington somehow overshadows her work to foster American dominance in the crypto space is silly,” said a source familiar with the discussions.
Then there’s Digital Chamber Founder and CEO Perianne Boring, who was named as a top candidate in a Fox Business story last week which made waves through the crypto industry. The article makes a strong argument for Boring, highlighting her crypto expertise and work as a TV anchor, which, in context of reports that say Trump cares very much about how his nominees appear on television, is relevant.
However, three sources who spoke to Unchained vehemently denied the claims, arguing that her candidacy was a rumor started by the Chamber itself in order to raise her profile. The debate over the likelihood of Boring being a contender is extremely heated, broadly prompting uncharacteristically snarky reactions and hot takes. “Perianne is CFTC Chair. And I am Satoshi Nakamoto,” one source close to the transition team quipped sarcastically.
The Rest of the Pack
Some other former CFTC officials who are potential candidates are former commissioner Jill Sommers, former director of the market participants division Josh Sterling, and former attorney in the Office of the General Counsel Neal Kumar.
Kumar is particularly interesting as a former Democrat who, judging by his political donation history on Open Secrets, donates to politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Trump.
Sommers and Sterling, meanwhile, are consistently conservative. Sommers, notably, is now the chair of the derivatives practice at Potomak, Atkins’ consulting firm. Each is a name that sources have heard tossed around as qualified candidates who would also be interested in the position, but no sources who spoke to Unchained are convinced they’re top contenders at this stage.
Read More: Crypto Industry Braces for a Wave of SEC, CFTC Actions as Fiscal Year Draws to a Close
Quintenz, Mersinger, Pham and Kumar declined requests for comment. The other contenders did not respond to requests for comment.
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