The US Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) might lastly get a chairperson as President Donald Trump’s nominee, Michael Selig, begins the vetting course of.
The CFTC is at the moment underneath the management of Appearing Chair Caroline Pham, who assumed the position in April 2025. She was nominated to the place by President Joe Biden in 2022 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate.
The Trump administration initially picked former CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz, who additionally sat on the board of playing platform Kalshi. Nevertheless, his nomination was withdrawn in September, reportedly on the request of the Winklevoss brothers, who had been involved that he was not sufficiently pro-crypto.
Selig, who has earlier expertise in authorities on the CFTC and the Securities and Alternate Fee, has pledged to make crypto a precedence.
Who’s Michael Selig, and the place does he stand on crypto?
Selig, a graduate of the George Washington College Legislation College, started his profession in authorities on the workplace of former CFTC Commissioner J. Christopher Giancarlo from 2014 to 2015.
After leaving the CFTC, Selig was an affiliate at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and Perkins Coie, the place he turned counsel. In April 2022, he joined Willkie Farr & Gallagher, turning into companion in January 2024.
In March 2025, he turned chief counsel to the SEC’s Crypto Process Drive and a senior advisor to the chairman.
Selig was unambiguously pro-crypto in an X submit on Saturday, confirming his nomination. He said that “a Nice Golden Age for America’s Monetary Markets and a Wealth of New Alternatives stand earlier than us,” including that he’ll “assist the President make america the Crypto Capital of the World.”
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David Sacks, the White Home’s AI and crypto czar, said that Selig is “captivated with modernizing our regulatory method with a purpose to preserve America’s competitiveness within the digital asset period.”
“[Selig] has not solely been instrumental in driving ahead the President’s crypto agenda as Chief Counsel of the SEC Crypto Process Drive, he additionally brings deep expertise in conventional commodities markets from his time working on the CFTC underneath former Chairman Chris Giancarlo.”
Business observers famous Selig’s shut evaluation of the SEC v. Ripple case. In 2023, he contended that XRP “is just pc code.” He known as it a “fungible commodity, like gold or whiskey — each of which will also be offered as a part of funding schemes that implicate securities legal guidelines.”
He said the “SEC can’t argue a $2b penalty towards Ripple with a straight face any higher than it could possibly the safety standing of XRP.”
This tack towards viewing digital belongings as a commodity, fairly than a safety, is especially essential as Congress considers a reshuffling of crypto regulation.
CFTC and SEC rebalance crypto regulation, however shutdown looms
Within the US Senate, lawmakers are at the moment deliberating over the Accountable Monetary Innovation Act. The invoice, which handed the Home of Representatives in a less complicated kind known as the “CLARITY Act” earlier this yr, would reclassify many cryptocurrencies as commodities.
Correspondingly, the duty of regulating a major variety of cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin (BTC), would fall to the CFTC. The fee already acts as the first regulator for crypto derivatives and has anti-fraud authority over the business’s spot market.
The invoice remains to be into account, however the authorities shutdown and rising bipartisanship have stalled progress considerably, blowing nicely previous the top of September deadline Senator Tim Scott had been hoping for.
Associated: Democrats counter US crypto framework; bill grinds to a halt
The SEC and CFTC have taken their very own initiatives to align their approaches on cryptocurrencies. In September, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announced a roundtable with the CFTC to align on cryptocurrency regulation and “make sure the SEC and CFTC function facet by facet in order that American innovation and funding can thrive.”
Pham mentioned that, lately, “the dynamic between our companies may very well be described as certainly one of competitors fairly than collaboration.”
“It’s not what we would like. And it’s not one of the simplest ways to serve the American individuals who depend on us.”
Pham famous that the companies had been making joint suggestions to the administration’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets through the SEC’s Venture Crypto and the CFTC’s Crypto Dash. The CFTC chair mentioned that cross-agency collaboration will “foster innovation, take away jurisdictional ambiguities, and improve market entry and the liberty to decide on for purchasers and traders.”
Even these efforts are restricted of their capacity and scope as long as a authorities shutdown continues, former CFTC Chair Giancarlo previously told Cointelegraph. He mentioned that it will be “very troublesome for the CFTC to implement the rulemaking that’s required underneath the CLARITY Act underneath an performing chair with out a full fee, or at the very least a partial fee.”
Federal companies are working with skeleton crews, and Democrats and Republicans proceed to spar over a funding invoice. Lack of full employees has affected not solely the CFTC and SEC’s capacity to implement new guidelines however has additionally hampered the latter’s ability to consider crypto exchange-traded fund listings.
With Selig’s nomination, the CFTC is poised to tackle the position of regulating crypto. However first, the federal government should conform to a funds, and political heavyweights from the crypto business like Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss should approve.
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