Jilted CFTC Nominee Brian Quintenz to Lobby With Coalition for Prediction Markets
Brian Quintenz may not be heading the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but he’ll still try to influence policy in a role with the Coalition for Prediction Markets.
The CPM announced Quintenz as a Senior Advisor yesterday in a post on X.
Quintenz was a CFTC commissioner during the first Trump presidency and, at one time, the odds-on favorite to be its Chairman during the current administration. After stepping down from his original role with the Commission during the Biden presidency, he took a seat on Kalshi’s board of directors.
Although Quintenz is a Republican, he was first nominated to the Commission by Barack Obama towards the end of his term — there are five seats on the Commission and only three can be held by any single party. However, he wasn’t confirmed until Trump took office. Trump initially rescinded that nomination before re-nominating Quintenz himself.
Kalshi is the largest regulated prediction market in the U.S. and one of five exchanges that form the CPM, along with Robinhood, Crypto.com, Coinbase, and Underdog.
Quintenz’s CFTC Chair Nomination Was Steeped in Controversy
Quintenz’s role with Kalshi raised questions about potential conflicts of interest during the nomination process for CFTC Chairman. To hear him tell it, however, the real reason he didn’t get the post was interference from billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. After his confirmation process came to a halt, he posted screenshots that he claims to be of a conversation between himself and the Winklevosses.
In that alleged conversation, Tyler asks Quintenz how he “plans to align with President Trump” on “making amends” for earlier CFTC “lawfare” against the twins’ crypto company, Gemini Space Station, and expresses frustration that Quintenz deferred giving a full answer, saying it was a situation he’d address after being fully confirmed.
The Winklevosses disputed Quintenz’s version. Publicly, their rationale for disapproving of his nomination was that he wanted to increase the Commission’s budget for regulating the crypto industry. Quintenz’s stance on regulation could be described as moderate, while the Winklevosses have pushed for broad deregulation.
Now, instead of Quintenz, Michael Selig sits alone as the CFTC Chairman, while the four other seats remain vacant. That is itself a point of some controversy, as it means Selig is taking on rule-making for the prediction markets singlehandedly.
CPM Takes Aim at State Regulators
On its website, the CPM describes its policy priorities as:
- Federal clarity and consistency
- Market integrity and transparency
- Consumer access and education
- Responsible innovation
“Responsible innovation” has been a phrase often repeated at the CFTC, including by Quintenz. It’s often framed as one half of a balancing act, with the other being regulation geared at investor protection.
Even as the CPM aims to influence policy at the federal level, one of its current PR campaigns centers on attacking similar efforts by the gambling industry at the state level.
One of the main prongs of that attack has been to circulate evidence that the language in state regulators’ messages to the CFTC about prediction markets originated with the American Gaming Association. The CPM frames this as “collusion” with the goal of limiting consumer choice.
The battle between prediction markets and their competitors in the traditional gambling sector is largely about jurisdiction. State regulators have aligned themselves with casino and online gambling companies in order to protect their tax revenue. The stance of the Trump-era CFTC, however, is that federal securities law supercedes states’ rights when it comes to event contracts on sports outcomes.
Although Quintenz’s stance on crypto regulation may have been slightly too cautious for the Trump administration’s liking, his views on the key jurisdictional question of prediction markets are very much aligned with those of the Commission.
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