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Though the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Acting Chairman Caroline Pham has been blazing forward on crypto-friendly policy, even as she has one foot out the door, the White House is working quickly to find a permanent successor after abandoning President Donald Trump's first choice.
Trump nominee Brian Quintenz, a former commissioner, was dropped recently, and the administration has since been "hard at work" on announcing a new choice, said former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, who added that he was at the White House on Wednesday.
"The White House felt that they had things in hand; it didn't work out," Giancarlo said in an interview on CoinDesk TV. "I'm very optimistic that soon we will have nominees that everyone will say, 'Wow, great choices.'"
Giancarlo — a longtime crypto advocate sometimes known in the industry as "Crypto Dad," a name he used as the title of a book he wrote on the digital assets movement — said the White House is vetting CFTC candidates beyond the chairmanship. Without a slate of commissioners, whoever takes over from Pham would be alone at the commission, which is meant to have five members by law. Policies instituted by a single-member commission could be vulnerable to legal challenges.
"They're very aware of this," Giancarlo said. "They know what they've got to do."
A top contender for the chairmanship is Mike Selig, who has been working as a senior official on crypto policies at the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people familiar with the vetting. Any nominees still need confirmation from the U.S. Senate before they can take the jobs — a process that stalled mid-stream with Quintenz after he was openly opposed by Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss.
The CFTC is likely to be a leading regulator of U.S. crypto markets, especially if the Senate completes and passes market structure legislation that's already cleared the House of Representatives. That effort would give new powers to the smaller cousin of the SEC, granting it jurisdiction over the spot markets where crypto commodities such as bitcoin trade directly. Though the SEC has been moving quickly into a crypto-cheering posture under Trump, the CFTC had a deep history with the sector since its 2015 move to recognize bitcoin as a commodity.
Earlier this week, Pham sought to assure financial-sector lawyers that the CFTC is moving forward fine under her temporary leadership, though she's also said she's hoping to leave the agency soon. Giancarlo said she is owed a "debt of gratitude" for what she's doing, much of which has been focused on a "crypto sprint" she's offered to match the SEC's Project Crypto agenda.
While the shorthanded CFTC awaits new leadership, the Senate has been slowed by the federal government shutdown and is showing few signs of a near-term completion of the industry legislation.
Representative Bryan Steil, the chairman of the crypto subcommittee within the House Financial Services Committee, said in a separate interview on CoinDesk TV that the current goal is "getting this completed as soon as possible, but no later than the end of the year." That's slipped considerably from Trump's initial deadline of August.
The House had already passed its version this year — the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. Steil argued the Senate can save a lot of time by "using Clarity as baseline text" for its work, though Senate Republicans proposed their own draft language and that's the text lawmakers have been working from.
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