Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, EXCHANGES AND MARKET REGULATION—Senate Ag Committee queries Quintenz about crypto, event contract connections, (Jun 11, 2025)

By Suzanne Cosgrove

A hearing to consider the nomination of Brian Quintenz as CFTC chairman was generally friendly, but some voiced reservations about his crypto and event contract ties.

Members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on Tuesday questioned Brian Quintenz, President Trump’s nominee for chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a post that has been vacant since the agency’s former chairman, Rostin Behnam, left the office in February.

Quintenz previously served as a CFTC commissioner for just over four years, from August 2017 to September 2021, but since leaving the agency he has been the head of policy for a16z crypto, the crypto venture funds of Andreessen Horowitz. He also is a board member of the prediction market Kalshi and an advisory council member of Crypto.com.

Quintenz told the senators he would divest from a16z crypto and Kalshi if confirmed as chairman, although a conflict of interest with his time served at Kalshi may have been reduced in May when the CFTC dropped its appeal of a case involving KalshiEx.

Five empty seats. CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham has served as acting chairman since Behnam left, but said she would leave the agency when a permanent chair is installed. Commissioner Kristin Johnson, a Democrat, also has announced her intention to leave, and Commissioners Summer Mersinger, a Republican, and Christy Goldsmith Romero, a Democrat, both quit recently. No more than three CFTC commissioners may be from the same political party at any one time.

“We meet at a pivotal moment for the CFTC, as it faces a rapidly changing landscape across both derivatives and spot markets,” noted Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) at the start of the hearing. “The agency is being called on to address the emergence of novel financial products and technology but also a broader shift in market structure, including the growing influence of non-traditional platforms as well as changes to established platforms.

“These developments raise important issues about the scope of the CFTC’s oversight and its ability to respond quickly to fast-moving markets,” she added. To tackle these challenges, it’s not only important to have a confirmed chairman, Klobuchar said, “but also a fully functioning Commission with the bipartisan balance and independent structure” that Congress intended. “I can’t think of a more important time that we make sure that happens,” she said.

The right regulator? Senator John Boozman (R-Ark.), chairman of the committee, led the questioning, but first said that the CFTC’s “constructive, flexible regulatory approach,” combined with diligent policing of cash and derivatives commodity markets, makes it the appropriate regulator of spot digital commodities markets.

“Only the CFTC understands the unique characteristics of commodities and commodity-based contracts,” Boozman said, noting that developing market products, such as prediction markets and crypto-based derivatives, also will require the Commission’s attention.

The CFTC is the “right agency to regulate spot digital commodities trade,” Boozman said, figuratively thumbing his nose at the SEC. “The CFTC, and only the CFTC, should regulate the trading of spot digital commodities,” he said.

On the precipice. The agency currently faces a proposed expansion of its traditional role as an overseer of financial and agriculture markets that allow farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and small businesses to hedge risk.

In prepared testimony, Quintenz said, “this could prove to be the most exciting time of agency’s history, as well as its most important,” adding the agency must remain “laser-focused” on meeting its systemic regulatory mandates.

“We are at the precipice for a golden age of innovation, for our derivatives markets and for the CFTC itself,” he said.

Quintenz said his experience at a16z crypto added to his qualifications for chairman of the CFTC, providing him with the opportunity to visit other jurisdictions to see what has worked well and what has failed. “I view blockchain as a horizontal technology that has the potential to touch every aspect of society,” he said.

If awarded oversight of the crypto markets by Congress, the CFTC should take a “technology-first approach,” Quintenz said in response to questioning from Klobuchar. He later said the Commission was “small but mighty,” but he allowed the agency likely would need additional staff if given greater oversight responsibility.

Commission’s make-up. Asked by Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) if he supported the CFTC’s bipartisanship, Quintenz said he had “a very deliberative dialogue” with other members of the Commission when he served previously. “I did value that experience,” and would hope to keep he bipartisan spirit of the agency if confirmed as chairman, he said.

But when pressed by Smith and others if he would advise President Trump to retain a bipartisan Commission going forward, Quintenz repeatedly said the president would make his own decision when naming commissioners.

LegislativeActivity: Blockchain CFTCNews CommodityFutures Enforcement ExchangesMarketRegulation RiskManagement