Crypto-Friendly Summer Mersinger Is Now the Top Contender for CFTC Chair

Sitting CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger is now the leading contender to chair the CFTC, according to five sources close to the deliberations.

In the new year, Mersinger has gained an edge over the former favorite, a16z crypto Head of Policy Brian Quintenz, as she is seen as a choice who could help Trump curry favor with a Senate led by South Dakota Republican John Thune.

Though the CFTC, which oversees commodities markets, often receives less attention than the SEC, which oversees securities, it could become the primary agency overseeing crypto within the next CFTC chair’s tenure. Previous iterations of a crypto market structure bill have made the CFTC crypto’s primary regulator, and policy advocates speculate that a similar bill could be passed before the midterm elections in two years.

Watch: Kristin Smith on Why This Is Crypto’s Time to ‘Get Policy Done’

Why Mersinger’s Name Has Risen to the Top

Mersinger has gained interest because of her ties to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, for whom she was a staffer from 2004 to 2016.

Several of Trump’s cabinet nominees are facing tough confirmations in the Senate, sources explained, and appointing Mersinger could help Trump stay in Thune’s good graces.

Additionally, because Mersinger is already a commissioner, she can simply be appointed to the interim chair position on January 20th, rather than needing to first go through the Senate confirmation process like Quintenz would as a private citizen. To become the permanent chair, however, she will need the Senate’s consent.

Why Quintenz’s Fortunes Are Flagging

Quintenz had been seen as the top contender before the holidays, largely because of his even closer ties to the industry due to his work at a16z crypto as well as his membership on the board of directors at prediction market Kalshi, a competitor to Polymarket.

Sources who spoke with Unchained also assumed Quintenz had the backing of his boss Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, of which a16z crypto is a part. Andreessen told The Free Press in December that he was spending about half of his time at Mar-a-Lago to help the incoming presidential administration. After Unchained first reported that Quintenz was the top contender, several other industry leaders supportive of Trump like Brian Armstrong and Chris Giancarlo said Quintenz would be a good choice for the industry.

However, excitement around Quintenz has diminished, according to the same five sources who said Mersinger was in the lead. A 2018 speech by Quintenz has gained some attention from crypto advocates, in which Quintenz argued that even back-end developers of DeFi protocols could be held liable for CFTC violations if it was reasonably foreseeable at the time of their writing the code that the tools they were creating could be misused.

Quintenz walked back the comments a few months later in a Coin Center blog post, and again clarified his stance in September 2023 on X. “This speech did not contain my best thinking or most thought through arguments,” Quintenz explained. “I quickly revisited what I had said, admitted I was wrong, and published a new take that made it clear writing code should not be an offense.”

Two sources also indicated that because another Andreessen pick, Sriram Krishnan, was given a position in the administration to oversee AI policy, the Trump transition team was less inclined to nominate another Silicon Valley favorite.

Mersinger’s Pro-Crypto History

Mersinger, along with fellow conservative CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham, has become known in the crypto industry for her dissents to crypto enforcement actions that were seen as excessive or unfair. In September, Mersinger, for example, called the CFTC’s fine on Uniswap for illegal digital asset derivatives trading “regulation through enforcement” in September, criticizing the agency for failing to first provide clarity for DeFi protocols.

She also issued a dissent on the CFTC’s charges against Opyn, ZeroEx, and Deridex for failing to register with the agency and illegally offering retail commodity transactions and digital assets the year prior for similar reasons, arguing that the CFTC’s aggressive posture halted innovation and pushed crypto offshore.

At the Solidus-run Digital Asset Compliance and Market Integrity Summit (DACOM) conference in September, Mersinger told the audience that when crypto settlements come across her desk, she’s often “lost the opportunity to have any influence,” and is “left with no other choice but to dissent.”

The commissioner has been seen at several crypto conferences over the past year, including Consensus, DACOM, and, most recently, the Blockchain Association Policy Summit. The appearances signal that Mersinger stays in close conversation with industry executives and lobbyists. Several such executives and lobbyists who have met Mersinger at such events told Unchained that they considered Mersinger knowledgeable about blockchain technology and aligned with industry priorities.

Several other former CFTC officials, such as former commissioner Jill Sommers, former director of the market participants division Josh Sterling, and former Office of the General Counsel Neal Kumar, have also been vetted. Kraken Chief Legal Officer Marco Santori is also in the mix, according to three sources. CFTC Commissioner Pham is also in contention, though three sources indicate that she is also vying for a separate position at Treasury — an interesting twist that could leave an additional conservative slot on the commission vacant.

Sommers and representatives for the Trump-Vance transition team did not respond to a request for comment. Quintenz, Kumar, Sterling, and representatives for Pham, Andreessen, Santori, and Mersinger declined to comment.