Brian Quintenz was originally on the docket for a committee vote on Monday afternoon regarding his potential confirmation to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Instead, the vote was pushed after Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s flight was delayed, as confirmed Monday by Bloomberg’s Yash Roy via X:
“Senate Ag pushes the confirmation vote for CFTC Chair Brian Quintenz, due to Hyde Smith’s flight delay. Dems, led by ranking member Klobuchar saying they won’t support his nomination. Ag Chair Boozman says the committee vote will happen before the August Recess”
The committee vote would have sent Quintenz’s nomination to the final step of a full Senate vote, where he is expected to be confirmed to chair the CFTC. Quintenz was a CFTC commissioner before working at a16z and becoming a board member at Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated prediction market platform.
While Quintenz has pledged to divest himself from Kalshi and other conflicts of interest, he did not satisfy all the concerns senators raised during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Agricultural Committee on June 10.
Update: July 25, 2025
Quintenz is back on the docket, scheduled for a committee vote regarding his nomination to chair the CFTC on Monday, July 28 in conjunction with the 5:30 p.m. floor vote.
Senate support for Quintenz divided
Democratic senators on the Senate Agricultural Committee unanimously opposed Quintenz’s nomination. During the hearing in June, Senators Adam Schiff and Corey Booker raised questions about Quintenz’s attitude about sports contracts, pressing him on whether he’d consider them “gaming” if confirmed. Senator Tina Smith wanted to know whether Quintenz would urge President Trump to appoint a bipartisan commission rather than appointing only Republicans.
Quintenz pledged to keep the “bipartisan spirit of the agency alive” in response to Smith but didn’t take a stance against sports contracts on regulated prediction markets as Schiff or Booker wanted.
In response to Schiff’s question about whether Quintenz would recuse himself from sports contract matters, Quintenz responded that the “agency would want to ensure that it is appropriately defending the Commodity Exchange Act and the remit that the agency has to regulate and preempt state laws around futures and derivatives markets.”
Quintenz also answered Booker by pointing out that “there is no framework that was provided for by Congress in terms of how to execute [a public interest review] appropriately.”
Innovation a recurring theme
In contrast, Quintenz received praise from Republican Senator Jim Justice, who used his time to emphasize that he is “a believer in crypto” and to call Quintenz the “real deal.”
Quintenz’s final question was a request to describe the importance of “principles-based regulation” and how it fostered innovation. He answered:
“I’m a strong believer in the benefit of principles based regulation for a few reasons. The first is that I believe it allows responsible innovation and allows the marketplace to evolve, to try new things, to be held to a standard of best practices, which do continue to evolve on their own. It prevents a one size fits all regime that locks in the technology approach or a standard approach…
“But we don’t need to look any further than how wonderful these markets are to understand the importance of principles based regulation. The CFTC oversees the most resilient and the most liquid and the most innovative derivative markets in the world, and in my belief, it is because of the principles based framework in the CEA.”
Quintenz’s expected appointment comes at a critical time for the agency as its duties expand. The CFTC is expected to oversee large parts of the crypto industry in addition to its current responsibilities, even as its staff faces fresh cuts, a scenario that has some industry stakeholders concerned.
Duties expand into crypto as CFTC faces continued cuts
The CFTC fired “over two dozen people” on July 16, about a week after the Supreme Court allowed Trump to conduct mass layoffs at federal agencies, Reuters reported.
Those firings come in the wake of the House’s passage of the CLARITY Act, which outlines the CFTC’s role in regulating cryptocurrencies as commodities. The Senate Banking Committee hopes to pass the bill before October 2025.
Whether the CFTC will receive additional funding, staff, and resources to oversee cryptocurrencies remains to be seen. Once the bill is signed into law and Quintenz is confirmed, he will be key in shaping the CFTC’s initial approach to crypto regulation, its guardrails, and the regulation of Kalshi’s largest competitor, Polymarket.
