Tyler Winklevos, CEO of Crypto Exchange Gemini, is in the center of a crack on the support of President Donald Trump’s candidate to direct the dark dark but haughty regulatory agency, the Basic Products Trade Commerce Commission.
He thinks that former CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz is a bad choice, and has been talking with Trump administration officials about it, he told Coendesk in an interview. That coincides with the White House by hitting the brakes in a necessary step in the quintenz confirmation process in the Senate.
The administration did not give the Senate Agriculture Committee a complete explanation when it stopped the vote of the Quintenz committee this week that would have advanced its approval to a final vote of the Senate’s floor. And the White House did not immediately answer Coendesk’s questions about what is brought on the path of the nominee, who until recently served as a regulator of A16z Crypto and is in the signing of the Kalshi Prediction Markets Board, although the White House has continued to support the nomination.
“Many in our industry have significant concerns about this nomination,” Winklevos told Coindesk. “Mr. Quintenz is not aligned with the president’s agenda and objectives.”
Read more: Quintenz, Trump’s choice as a possible guard dog of the United States cryptography, delayed by the White House
Winklevos and his twin brother, Cameron, co -founder of Gemini and other shared commercial interests, are among the prominent cryptographic experts who have occupied a front seat, literally in the recent Campaign of the White House to raise the digital asset industry of the United States. When Trump organized a cryptographic summit of the White House, the brothers were sitting among the main guests. And when the president signed national innovation to guide and establish for the US stable. UU. (GENIUS) Act in law were sitting in the first row with other prominent figures, including CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong and the CEO of Tether, Paulo Ardoino.
Trump even mentioned the brothers in his comments on the first major cryptographic legislative victory. Therefore, they have come to occupy a prominent place in the vision of the president of the cryptographic industry, asking questions about whether Gemini can get Quintenz with consideration.
At this late stage in the confirmation process, a significant delay or a beginning could weigh on industry policy priorities. Although the CFTC can be largely invisible to the public of the United States, its importance for the cryptographic space has increased considerably as legislators in Congress approach the approval of the legislation that would establish the regulation of crypto markets in the United States, but Tyler Winkless argued that it would be a mistake to Quintenz in charge.
Gemini’s CEO argues that Quintenz has the incorrect opinions about the protection of developers, the digital currencies of the Central Bank (CBDC)Federal Expenditure and is increasing ethical red flags with the reported communications he has made in the name of the company that serves as a member of the Board, Kalshi.
Responsibility of the developer
“Quintenz supports the prosecution of intelligent contract developers,” said Winklevos, qualifying it as a “disqualifying position.”
“Intelligent contract developers must be protected so that innovation flourishes and to carry out the vision of President Trump to make the United States the cryptographic capital of the world,” he said.
In October 2018, the then Commissioner Quintenz delivered a speech on intelligent contracts, saying that a developer should be legally responsible if he could recognize that his work would be used to border government regulations. With Roman Storm, a developer behind Tornado Cash, who currently awaits his jury verdict in a criminal trial in the United States, the question of the responsibility of a software developer is at the forefront.
The industry has a strong opinion on this matter, arguing that creators should not be punished by how their creations are used. In the same way that manufacturers of car and firearms communication technologies are not persecuted by criminal prosecution on how their products are used by bad actors, the sector argues that innovators of digital assets similarly should not be in the hook of how their platforms and tools are used downstream, provided that the products are not actively administered by those who write the code.
The position of the industry seems to be in line with a president of the Commission of Speech and Securities Securities, Paul Atkins, gave Thursday to announce the “Crypto Project” of his agency, in which one of his efforts will be to “protect the pure editors of the software code.”
Kalshi
In his objections to Quintenz, Winklevos also marked recent reports on the communications of the former commissioner with the CFTC as a private citizen, since he allegedly sought information about the Kalshi prediction market platform, where he serves in the Board of Directors.
Winklevos said that the recent revelations of the emails were looking for under the law of freedom of information, in which Quintenz and an associate seem to have requested information about the work and deliberations of the agency on Kalshi’s rivals, “they raise serious questions.”
The CFTC has fought a long -standing battle on the regulation of prediction markets. The position of previous leadership under President Rostin Behnam was that the activity should be regulated as a game, and had concerns about the agency’s political elections, one of the areas of high profile prediction bets. Behnam’s agency fought against the industry in court, including Kalshi, although he recently left that dispute.
Although CFTC’s interim president, Caroline Pham, argued that the agency took the wrong path, said it is difficult to reverse her position on event contracts, which characterized “a sink of legal uncertainty and an inappropriate restriction in the new administration.”
CFTC financing
Winklevos also raised the problem with Quintenz’s comments about the probable need for more money and resources in the CFTC, since the supervision of a strip of the cryptographic activity of the United States is acquired.
“The Trump administration wants to cut the bureaucracy and deregulate,” Winklevos said. “This nominated continues to advocate the dramatically increase in budgets and the regulation that will lead to regulatory capture.”
In its Senate Confirmation Hearing, Quintenz suggested that a significant budget impulse will probably be needed if the CFTC finally is responsible for being the main federal regulator for cryptographic markets.
However, the question of funds has been central to discussions on cryptographic legislation to review the CFTC authority. Republicans have routinely recognized that the agency is likely to seek more resources to allow it to supervise a wide new area of the financial sector and, for the first time, actively regulate a spot market, which means a market where real assets are negotiated, such as Bitcoin
.
When asked about it in a Coindesk TV interview this week, Trump’s Crypt advisor, Bo Hines, granted that the agency may need more resources.
“The Congress is very aware that the CFTC may require some additional work, but I think it is something that we can do easily through legislation,” said Hines.
CBDCS
The co -founder of Gemini also interpreted some of Quintenz’s previous comments on the digital coins of Central Bank (CBDC) How to be open to the discussion about an American version, a possibility that Republican politicians try as toxic as toxic and most of the cryptographic industry. But Quintenz’s comments in 2020 were relatively superficial, which suggests that it would be important for the CFTC “to remain aware of the legal and regulatory questions” around government tokens, which he described in public comments as an “area of particular interest to me.”
Even an interest must be disqualifying, says Winklevos.
“You shouldn’t be interested in CBDC or entertain that type of totalitarian technology,” he said. “That in itself is disqualifying and against everything our industry represents.”
From candidates in Congress to Trump, Republican legislators have painted the concept of CBDC as a government campaign to seek control and surveillance on citizens’ finances. But the idea never advanced beyond a point of discussion with some democratic legislators and a technical study issue among regulators and has never increased to an active project in the United States, since China and Europe moved to implement digital currencies backed by the Government.
The Federal Reserve officials, including President Jerome Powell, had routinely said they would not act without Congress and the White House, and if the Central Bank once issued a digital dollar, officials said that transactions should be administered by US banks and not the government.
CFTC leadership vacu
The pause in the Quintenz confirmation process has thrown some significant questions about the future leadership of the CFTC. The commission of five currently has only two members, one of each party, and both have said that they leave soon. That could leave a newly confirmed president about the agency.
But if the Quintenz nomination is abandoned or significantly delayed, people familiar with the plans of the interim president Pham suggest that he is anxious to move forward, potentially in the coming weeks. If you cannot stay to preside over the commission, ask questions about what happens next, if President Trump would be under pressure to push the Democratic commissioner, Kristin Johnson, of the CFTC, so the agency would not be assumed by the agenda of a Democrat and how long can be without an official president.
The Senate goes to his August recess, leaving behind his work as Washington for a while. Even if things return to normal, their final confirmation vote of the general Senate could be further delayed.
If Quintenz continues through the process and becomes president, some legal experts have questioned the strength of the formulation of policies of a single commissioner about what a group of five members should be.
“I think that when looking at the rules of the quorum, the agency can still act,” said CFTC Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero to Coindesk TV in a Thursday interview with Jennifer Sanasie. “But is that the best way to act?”
She suggested the possible investors in the space, even of traditional financial institutions, “all will want some certainty.” And that can be provided, he said, by the White House that pays more names and obtains a complete commission confirmed by the Senate, “but we have not seen that yet.”
When asked about the value of having both parties represented in the commission during their confirmation hearing, Quintenz refused to guess the Trump nomination process.
“The president is the chief of the Executive, and the president will make his own decisions,” he said.
