Brian Quintenz, a former United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner, has reportedly emerged as the top contender for the CFTC chair position under the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
According to a Bloomberg report, people familiar with the matter said that Quintenz had been interviewed for the position.
Currently the head of policy at Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto division, a16z, Quintenz’s background includes overseeing key policy initiatives at the CFTC between 2017 and 2021.
The appointment of the former CFTC commissioner could shift the scales in a long-debated jurisdictional lack of clarity over cryptocurrencies between the CFTC and the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Quintenz previously served as a Republican-appointed commissioner at the CFTC, advocating for financial innovation within the digital asset industry, and he currently pushes for regulatory clarity as head of policy at a16z.
During his tenure at the CFTC, he supported the integration of digital asset derivatives and event contracts into the federal agency’s regular framework, focusing on improving innovation while maintaining market integrity.
At a16z, Quintenz advocates for crypto regulations that balance scrutiny with flexibility, using his dual experience in traditional finance (TradFi) and crypto regulation to bridge the two playing fields.
Quintenz’s criticism of the SEC
In March, he criticized the SEC for how it handled Ether’s status as a security, arguing that the regulator already “explicitly acknowledged” that Ether ETHUSD is a non-security asset as of October 2023 when it approved Ether futures exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Quintenz said that “if the SEC had any doubt about the regulatory treatment of ETH […] it wouldn’t have approved the ETF,” adding that if it were a security, the CFTC-listed future contracts “would be illegal.”
Since then, spot Ether ETFs have not only been approved, but they have flourished, recording their biggest single day of inflows with an aggregate of $431.5 million pouring in on Dec. 5.
Crypto under the Trump administration
Venture capital firm a16z has said that it expects “greater flexibility to experiment” amid a crypto regulatory shakeup with the new administration.
The crypto company said it is “very optimistic” about the forthcoming government’s pro-crypto political stance, something the crypto industry has considered lacking under the current administration.
A16z has been one of the largest investors in the crypto industry, funding hundreds of startup firms, including Maker, Solana, Avalanche, Aptos, EigenLayer, Lido, Nansen, OpenSea, Coinbase and more.