Tyler Winklevoss, the CEO of Crypto Exchange Gemini, is in the midst of a rapid support to President Donald Trump’s nominent nominee to run the unlucky-but-high regulatory agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
He thinks former CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz is a bad choice, and he talks to officials from the Trump administration about it, he told CoinDesk in an interview. That coincides with the White House destroying the brake with a required step in Quintenz’s Confirmation process In the Senate.
The administration did not give the Senate Agriculture Committee a full explanation when it stopped the Quintenz Committee vote this week to advance his approval of a final vote on the Senate floor. And the White House did not respond immediately to Regulatory Chief for A16z Crypto and is on the board of prediction-market firm Mashi, even though the White House has reported to have continued to back back on nomination.
“Many in our industry have significant concerns about this nomination,” Winklevoss told CoinDesk. “Mr. Quintenz is not aligned with the President’s agenda and purpose.”
Read more: Quintenz, Trump’s choice as a potential guardian in US Crypto, delayed by the White House
Winklevoss and his twin brother Cameron, fellow co-founder of Gemini and other shared business interests, are among the prominent crypto insults that occupy a front-literal-literal-in the recent White House campaign to raise the US digital assets industry. When Trump posted a White House Crypto Summit, the brothers sat on the main guests. And when the President signed the guide and establishment of national change for US Stablecoins (Genius) Increasing the law, they sat in the front row next to other well -known figures, including coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Tether CEO Paulo Ardoino.
Trump even mentioned the brothers in his comments about the first major crypto legislature win. So they went to seize a well -known place in the president’s view of the crypto industry, which raised questions about whether Gemini would get Quintenz to be booting from the consideration.
In this final stage in the confirmation process, a significant delay or start may be weighed in the priorities of industry policy. While the CFTC may be mainly unaware of the US in the US, its importance for the crypto space is increasingly increasing as Congress lawmakers approach the passage of law that will build regulation of Crypto markets in the US but Tyler Winklevoss has argued that it was a mistake to put Quintenz.
The Gemini CEO is arguing that Quintenz has a misconception of protecting developers, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
Developer’s liability
“Quintenz supports the prosecution of intelligent contract developers,” said Winklevoss, calling it a “disqualifying position.”
“Smart contract developers need to be protected to develop change and realize President Trump’s vision to make America the capital of the crypto in the world,” he said.
In October 2018, Quintenz of Quintenz gave a speech to wise contracts, saying a developer should be potentially seen as legal liable If they recognize their work they will be used to cut down government regulations. With the Roman Storm, a developer behind Tornado Cash, Currently awaiting his jury judgment In a US criminal test, the question of a software developer was in the forefront.
The industry has a strong acquisition in this regard, contingent that the creators should not be punished for how their creations are used. In the same way that cars manufacturers and communication technologies are not pursued by criminal prosecution for how their products are used by evil actors, the sector argued that digital innovators similar should not be in Kawit for how their platforms and tools are used downstream, as long as the products are not active codes.
The position of the industry seems to be falling into the line of a securities and chairman of the exchange commission Paul Atkins on Thursday Express the “Project Crypto of his agency,” where one of its efforts is “protecting the pure software code publishers.”
MILLI
In his objections to Quintenz, the winklevoss also submitted recent reports to the former Commissioner’s Communication with the CFTC as a private citizen, as he was searched for information on competitors on the Malashi market platform, where he served on the directors’ board.
Winklevoss said recently The revelations of emails sought under the freedom of information informationWhere Quintenz and an associate seemed to request an insight into the agency’s work and consultations with the Malashi rivals, “Raise serious questions.”
The CFTC has conducted a long -term battle with regulation of predictions. The position of previous leadership under the chairman Rostin Behnam is that the activity should be regulated as gambling, and he has concerns with the agency that politicizes elections-one of the high-profile-estimation arena of prophecy betting. Behnam’s agency has fought in the industry in court, including the Moldi, though recently left that dispute.
While the CFTC Acting Chairman Caroline Pham has argued with the agency took the wrong pathHe said it was difficult to reverse its position with event contracts, which he described as “a sinkhole of legal uncertainty and an inappropriate forcing the new administration.”
CFTC funding
Winklevoss also raised the issue with Quintenz’s statements on the likely requirement of more money and resources to the CFTC as it takes in the supervision of a US crypto activity.
“The Trump administration wants to cut red tape and deregulate,” Winklevoss said. “This nominee continues to promote the noticeable increase in budgets and overregulations that will lead to regulation.”
During his hearing on Senate confirmation, Quintenz suggested A Significant budget strengthening is probably necessary If the CFTC was later assigned as the leading federal regulator for crypto markets.
However, the question of funding has long been the center of Crypto law discussions to overhand the CFTC authority. Republicans regularly acknowledge that the agency is likely to seek more resources to allow it to administer a widely new financial sector area and – in the first time – actively regulate a place market, which means a market where actual ownership is exchanged, such as Bitcoin
.
When asked about it An interview with CoinDesk TV This week, Top Trump Crypto adviser Bo Hines has provided that the agency may need more resources.
“Congress knows that the CFTC may require some further labor, but I think we can do something easily by law,” Hines said.
CBDCS
Gemini co-founder also interpreted some of Quintenz’s previous comments on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) As open to the discussion in a US version – a possibility treated as toxic by Republican politicians and most of the crypto industry. But Quintenz’s statements In 2020 was a bit shallow, suggesting that it was important that the CFTC “remain in legal and regulatory questions” around government tokens, which he described in public comments as a “place of particular interest to me.”
Although an interest should be disqualifying, Winklevoss argues.
“You should not be interested in CBDCs or entertaining that kind of totalitarian technology,” he said. “That in itself is not qualified and against all of our industry.”
From Congress candidates to Trump, Republican lawmakers have Painted the concept of CBDCs as a government campaign to seek control and monitoring of citizens’ financial control and monitoring. But the idea never progressed more than a discussion point with some democratic lawmakers and a Subject of technical study Among the regulators and never rose to an active project in the US, while China and Europe have moved to implement digital currencies supported by the government.
Federal Reserve officers, including the seat Jerome Powell.
CFTC leadership vacuum
The pause of Quintenz’s confirmation process has thrown some important questions about the CFTC’s future leadership. Five Commission members are currently only two members-one from each party — and They both said they were leaving soon. That can leave a freshly confirmed chairman united with the agency.
But if Quintenz’s nomination is abandoned or significantly delayed, people are familiar with the acting chairman Pham’s plans suggest that he is eager to continue, potential in the coming weeks. If he could not stay in the commission, it would raise questions about what would happen next – if President Trump would be doomed to deliver the Democratic Commissioner, Kristin Johnson, outside the CFTC, so the agency would not take the agenda of a Democrat, and how long the CFTC could not have the official chair.
The Senate is heading back to its August, leaving the job in Washington. Although things are back on the track, his final vote of the General Senate confirmation may be delayed.
If Quintenz persists through the process and become chairman, some legal experts have Cast Doubt In the power of policy labor from a single commissioner to what means to become a five-member group.
“I think when looking at the rules of the quorum, the agency can still act,” former CFTC commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero told CoinDesk TV in a Thursday interview with Jennifer Sanasie. “But is that the best way to act?”
He suggested potential investors in space – including from traditional financial institutions – “they all want some certainty.” And it could be granted, he said, by the White House who appointed many names and obtaining an entire commission confirmed by the Senate, “but we have never seen it.”
When talking about the value of having both parties represented at the commission during his confirmation hearing, Quintenz refused the process of Trump’s second guessing nomination.
“The President is the leader of the executive, and the President will make his own decisions,” he said.
