Crypto executive emerges as a top contender for CTFC chair

by Lydia Beyoud and Stephanie Lai

Brian Quintenz has emerged as a top contender to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on what could be a dramatic shift in crypto regulation under President-elect Donald Trump.

Quintenz, a former Republican CFTC commissioner, has been interviewed for the position, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked to speak on background about private discussions. 

He currently leads policy at a16z Crypto, the digital asset arm of venture capital heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz. Quintenz as well as a spokesman for a16z declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Trump transition didn’t respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The president-elect’s team has concluded the interviews for the chair of the agency, the nation’s top swaps and futures regulator, and an announcement of the selection is anticipated in the coming days, the people said. Bloomberg previously reported that current Republican CFTC Commissioners Summer Mersinger and Caroline Pham were under consideration for the role, as were lawyers and former CFTC officials Joshua Sterling and Neal Kumar.

If selected for the position, Quintenz would bridge the worlds of digital assets and traditional finance. Before joining the CFTC, he founded and led Saeculum Capital Management, a hedge fund, and worked on Capitol Hill.

Galaxy Digital projects that total fundraising by digital assets-focused venture firms will come to $1.95 billion in 2024 — less than half the $4.5 billion a16z crypto raised for its fourth fund alone in 2022.

While at the CFTC during the first Trump administration, he pushed the agency to embrace new financial services companies, including digital asset derivatives as well as event contracts, which allow retail traders to bet on the outcome of nearly anything.

He’s gone on to push for more welcoming regulatory policies for both industries since joining a16z, including joining the board of Kalshi Inc., one of the first CFTC-regulated prediction markets. 

His recent and past experience would be relevant as the agency prepares to tackle major policy shifts from President Joe Biden’s administration in its treatment of digital assets and prediction markets. 

The cryptocurrency industry emerged as one of the most powerful political forces during the 2024 election, helping fund the defeats of incumbent members of Congress. Event contracts exchanges like Polymarket, which is unregulated, garnered public attention as ways to measure real-time voter sentiment.

In May, Bloomberg reported that Andreessen Horowitz donated $25 million to the political action committee Fairshake to support crypto-friendly candidates in the US elections. 

The CFTC is seen by many in the digital asset industry as the preferred regulator for crypto exchanges and other firms in the US. The crypto industry says it wants clarity from Congress and regulators about whether their products or services fall under the CFTC or the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules, and how to come into compliance with them. 

Quintenz himself weighed in on the election’s impact on the future of crypto in a Nov. 10 a16z crypto blog he co-authored with other Andreessen executives, “While we’ll likely have greater flexibility to experiment, we can’t forget that the fundamental regulatory principles applicable to blockchain systems remain unchanged,” Quintenz and his colleagues wrote. 

“There will still be valid scrutiny from regulators and policymakers of certain aspects of the industry irrespective of progress on new legislation or a re-calibrated regulatory environment,” they added.

Copyright Bloomberg News