Washington’s two main market regulators are about to get new faces. U.S. President Donald Trump has picked four people to help run them, and the clock is already ticking. The White House sent
Washington’s two main market regulators are about to get new faces.
U.S. President Donald Trump has picked four people to help run them, and the clock is already ticking.
The White House sent the Senate four nominees on Nov. 12. Two would join the Securities and Exchange Commission and two the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Both agencies shape how crypto is regulated in the U.S. The SEC oversees stocks and other securities.
The CFTC oversees futures and other derivatives, including many crypto products.
Each is meant to be a bipartisan, five-member panel.
Right now, the CFTC has just one member, Chairman Michael Selig, Bloomberg reported.
The SEC has two, Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda.
Related: JPMorgan’s latest filing reveals a bigger Bitcoin footprint
For the SEC, Trump picked Steven Levine and Kristin N. Johnson.
Levine would fill the seat once held by Hester Peirce, for a term running to June 5, 2030. Johnson would take Caroline Crenshaw’s former seat, with a term ending June 5, 2029.
Levine is a senior official on the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. He previously served as deputy chief of staff to Uyeda when Uyeda was the SEC’s acting head.
For the CFTC, he named Nathan Anonick and Matthew Rowland. Anonick would replace Rostin Behnam, for a term ending June 19, 2031.
Rowland would serve the rest of Summer Mersinger’s term, which ends April 13, 2028.
Both CFTC picks work as staffers on the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC. Anonick helped lead the committee’s work on its part of the CLARITY Act.
The slate splits evenly by party, according to Reuters. Levine and Anonick are Republicans. Johnson and Rowland are Democrats.
They’re the first Democrats nominated to either agency since Trump returned to the White House, as per reports.
Johnson isn’t new to the job. She previously served as a CFTC commissioner under President Joe Biden.
She left the agency last year, and she has also been a law school professor and a vice president at JPMorgan Chase.
Every nominee needs Senate approval, and the timing is tight.
Democrats won control of the Senate in the Nov. 3 midterms and take over in January.
The nominations arrive at a busy moment for crypto rules. Earlier this month, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said perpetual futures on individual U.S. stocks can now trade on CFTC-registered exchanges that are also registered with the SEC.
Perpetual futures are contracts that track an asset’s price with no expiry date.
The CFTC is also fighting several states over who should regulate prediction markets, platforms where users trade on the outcomes of real-world events.
In Congress, the CLARITY Act, a bill meant to set clearer rules for crypto markets, failed to pass the Senate in September.
If it isn’t passed before the current Congress ends on Jan. 3, 2027, it will have to be reintroduced.
The people on these commissions help decide how those rules are written and enforced.
The Senate now decides how quickly these four get that chance.
Related: Veteran economist warns investors that Bitcoin’s worst may not be over
