The Trump administration tapped Commodity Futures Trading Commission veteran Brian Quintenz to lead the commodities regulator, according to a document sent to the Senate on Tuesday.
The document, published by Punchbowl News, named dozens of high-level government nominations including Quintenz, who has worked in the private sector since departing the CFTC in September 2021, following a four-year stint at the agency.
He joined venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as an adviser at the time, and since December 2022 has led the firm’s cryptocurrency policy initiatives, according to his LinkedIn profile.
At the Blockchain Summit in 2021, while CFTC commissioner, he said that he believed “a private cryptocurrency oversight body could bridge the gap between the status quo and future government regulatory action.”
A crypto self-regulatory organization could have global market significance, he said.
“I think right now everyone's trying to figure out where and how their laws apply to this space,” he told CoinDesk following his presentation.
“If the community takes advantage of that time and that ambiguity there's the potential for a global framework to apply to everyone if there's enough buy-in from the community to do that, since there aren't jurisdictional questions as to which entity has to do what, or rules that necessitate a bifurcation or separate approaches to the regulation,” he said.
While at the CFTC – first nominated by President Barack Obama and then by President Donald Trump, in his first term – Quintenz led the agency’s Technology Advisory Committee; and during his tenure, the CFTC oversaw the listing of the first U.S. regulated Bitcoin and Ether futures contracts on derivatives exchanges, according to his a16z bio.
In an a16z blog post from November, Quintenz and two colleagues shared their thoughts on what this election meant for the crypto world.
“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 wrote. “We should expect a future where these clear rules will make it easier to identify and shut down bad actors, similar to FTX, while allowing well meaning projects to take off. This will both protect consumers and rebuild trust and confidence in the technology.”
“The previous approach of regulation by enforcement, with no regulatory clarity, both blocked good actors and allowed bad actors, which actively harmed consumers and unfairly eroded trust in the space,” Quintenz and his colleagues wrote.
Ji Kim, president and acting CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, called Quintenz’s nomination “fantastic news for our country, digital assets, and the future of America's markets.”
“Nobody better understands the transformative potential of digital asset technology, and how sound and clear regulation can foster growth,” Kim said in a post on social media site X.
