CFTC Chair nominee Brian Quintenz has published messages with the Winklevoss twins, accusing them of blackballing him with President Trump after he failed to immediately and enthusiastically champion their grievances.


![A new chair for the CFTC has still not been confirmed with the Senate in recess, and the conflict over nominee Brian Quintenz is continuing. Setting aside the issues of questionable emails he sent to the current CFTC Commissioners over their regulation of prediction markets — while he has a conflict of interest as a shareholder and board member at Kalshi — I’ve also outlined in past issues how the once supportive Winklevosses turned against him for seemingly strategy-related differences [I90]. Their opposition has diverged from much of the rest of the crypto industry, which recently sent a supportive letter urging his confirmation [I91]. The reason for this divergence may have just become clear, as Quintenz himself published July messages from a group chat with the Winklevoss twins, who pointed him to a furious public letter they sent to the CFTC Inspector General in June after reaching a settlement with the agency [I86].20 “Please take a look and let me know your thoughts after you’ve read our 13-page letter,” wrote Tyler. “7 years of lawfare trophy hunting. It’s outrageous what they did to us.” Quintenz doesn’t really push back in the conversation, though he seems to try to delay the conversation until his confirmation, writing that their complaints “should be unequivocally left to a fully confirmed chair” but that he “will address this fully and fairly if and when I am confirmed.” Later, Tyler states he is “disappointed and surprised that you haven’t seen, heard, or](https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/115/192/182/159/031/628/original/626f9e9191ba1c17.png)
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CFTC Chair nominee Brian Quintenz has published messages with the Winklevoss twins, accusing them of blackballing him with President Trump after he failed to immediately and enthusiastically champion their grievances.
The Trump family scored huge windfalls this week as WLFI became available for trading, and American Bitcoin went public. Their WLFI stake has been reported at multi-billions of dollars, though this valuation suffers from the usual crypto pricing issues I’ve written about before.
The World Liberty project, which the Trump sons say they created to fight “debanking”, is getting some flak for freezing holders’ tokens — including those belonging to some of their biggest backers, like billionaire Justin Sun.
The Nasdaq has determined that Eric Trump should not serve on the board of ALT5 Sigma, a treasury company that’s set to buy $750 million WLFI tokens, benefiting him and his family to the tune of $500 million. I guess they have to draw the line somewhere.
The Senate published a new discussion draft of their market structure legislation. Senator Warren has issued a statement that the newest proposal “reportedly reflects secret feedback” from the crypto industry that Republicans have refused to share.
Pro-crypto Senate Democrats have signaled they’re willing to work on a market structure bill, but have made some demands — including a prohibition on elected officials profiting from crypto projects.
Democrats have made these demands in the past, but typically not the ones who have provided the swing votes for crypto legislation. Now, 11 of 18 Senators who voted for GENIUS have signed on to a letter demanding these changes.
And the letter was authored by Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who received $10 million from the crypto lobby in 2024. It’s certainly possible that some demands will be dropped during negotiations, but this strikes me as the strongest pushback we’ve seen thus far from pro-crypto Senate Dems.
The CFTC has issued a no-action letter greenlighting Polymarket to start opening up to US customers. Thank goodness: in the future, when Treasury Sec Scott Bessent threatens to punch FHFA director Bill Pulte in the face, US speculators will be able to gamble on the likelihood that Bessent actually throws a punch.
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