Crypto-friendly CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz reportedly plans to step down

Published at: Aug. 19, 2021

Brian Quintenz, who has served as one of the commissioners with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, reportedly plans to leave the agency on Aug. 31.

According to a Thursday report from the Wall Street Journal, Quintenz is expected to announce his move into the private sector after leaving the CFTC later this month. He hinted that his future career could include a focus on “innovation, particularly related to cryptocurrency and DeFi” and planned to continue advocating for the crypto space.

Quintenz was first nominated to the position by President Barack Obama in March 2016 before being re-nominated by Trump in May 2017 and confirmed that August. His term at the CFTC was scheduled to end in April 2020, but he announced, at that time, that he would stay “until the earlier of the confirmation of my successor or October 31, 2020,” later extending this to “until the Senate acts on a confirmation.”

Many in the industry know Quintenz as one of the leading voices in favor of crypto at the CFTC. He has argued cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) should be regulated by the CFTC rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission and also called on crypto industry stakeholders to create a self-regulatory framework. 

Related: US lawmakers urge CFTC and SEC to form joint working group on digital assets

The CFTC has five commissioners in its panel. With the departure of Quintenz and former chairperson Heath Tarbert, there are two empty seats available to be filled with nominations from President Joe Biden. CFTC Commissioner Rostin Behnam has been acting as chairperson since Tarbert left in January.

Tags
Regulation
United States
Bitcoin Regulation
Government
Cftc
Related Posts
President Biden announces picks to fill CFTC vacancies
President Joe Biden has tapped acting chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Rostin Behnam to assume his position on a permanent basis and two others to fill vacant commissioner seats. In a Monday announcement from the White House, President Biden said he planned to nominate Behnam — who has been serving as lead at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission since former chair Heath Tarbert left in January — in addition to Kristin Johnson and Christy Goldsmith Romero. All must be confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate. According to her faculty profile at the Emory University School of Law, Johnson …
Regulation / Sept. 14, 2021
Law Decoded: Making sense of mixed signals, Dec. 13–20
The crypto regulation regime in any jurisdiction is an equilibrium among multiple institutional, group and personal interests of actors who have a sway over financial and monetary policies. These interests never perfectly align, frequently resulting in contradictory signals coming out of various power centers. Speaking about systemic risks facing the world’s largest economy last week, the United States Federal Reserve chair said digital assets were not a financial stability concern. Two days later, the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council issued a report that concluded that stablecoins and decentralized finance could pose sizeable financial stability risks. The source of this discrepancy …
Etf / Dec. 20, 2021
U.S. Congressman calls for ‘Broad, bipartisan consensus’ on important issues of digital asset policy
In a letter to the leadership of the United States House Financial Services Committee, ranking member Patrick McHenry took a jab at “inconsistent treatment and jurisdictional uncertainty” inherent in U.S. crypto regulation and called for the Committee to take on its critical issues. McHenry, a Republican representing North Carolina, opened by mentioning that the Committee’s Democrat Chairwoman Maxine Waters is looking to schedule additional hearings addressing matters pertinent to the digital asset industry. He further stressed the need for identifying and prioritizing the key issues and achieving a “broad, bipartisan consensus” on the matters affecting the industry that holds immense …
Regulation / Jan. 25, 2022
Law Decoded: States’ crypto rights and the influx of digital money into analog politics, Feb. 7–14.
Several storylines that had been long in the making dominated last week’s news cycle in the cryptocurrency policy and enforcement department. The Russian government has made another huge step on the path toward creating a tailored regulatory framework for digital assets, unveiling its consolidated view that crypto is to be treated as currency rather than swept under the rug of a blanket ban. While this movement in the direction of crypto’s formal legitimization is a welcomed development, a host of questions persists related to both the exact shape of the new regime and its enforcement. The biggest enforcement story of …
Regulation / Feb. 14, 2022
What the SEC can learn from the German regulator
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s chairperson Gary Gensler announced this month that the crypto industry should not escape the purview of the regulator. He highlighted that decentralized finance (DeFi) trading and lending protocols need particular attention when it comes to investor protections. Regulation can extend into a menu of options that covers custody, reporting, counterparty verification and asset classification and issuance. Reports are surfacing that people are waiting with bated breath on how the SEC will regulate the DeFi industry, but Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, also known as BaFin, has found a way to apply existing securities …
Technology / Aug. 12, 2021