forbes.com
Amid the debate on a market structure bill in Congress and the recently released discussion draft by the Senate Agriculture Commitee, it is no wonder that it took only 12 days after the nomination of Mike Selig by President Trump to also schedule a nomination hearing.
The hearing is set for next Wednesday, November 19th at 3pm ET. While there are typically questions of nominees in these hearings focused on policy, their background, and even politically-motivated concerns or questions, the Senate Ag Committee will likely simply be grateful to have the nominee’s expertise on crypto as it is tasked with incorporating feedback from the industry on a landmark bill set to give the CFTC broad new powers over the spot crypto market.
Selig is currently a high-ranking regulator, serving as Chief Counsel of the SEC’s Crypto Task Force and Senior Advisor to SEC Chair Paul Atkins. Previously, Selig was a partner at Wilkie, Farr, and Gallagher where he worked with the former Chair of the CFTC Chris Giancarlo. Selig got his start with crypto serving as a law clerk for Giancarlo at the CFTC early in his career. There are many in the industry who support him, but many in the crypto industry may feel a sense of déjà vu with this, as just earlier this year another nominee for the Chair of the CFTC had widespread support in the industry as well.
Past CFTC Chair Nominee Drama
Selig is well-respected by crypto industry colleagues and the speed of the hearing is also likely being done by Chair John Boozman (R-AR) to help avoid some of the drama that was involved with the last nominee, former CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz. While the debate over why the nomination of Qunitenz was ultimately withdrawn, the public spectacle of the clash between Quintenz and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, co-founders of Gemini, and their direct lobbying efforts with President Trump to have his nomination withdrawn, seems to be the ultimate cause of what originally seemed like a fairly sure thing.
After all, Quintenz was a former CFTC Commissioner and had the public support of the former Chairman of the CFTC, Chris Giancarlo, also known as Crypto Dad, early on. He was also the policy lead for az16 crypto, the all-powerful venture capital firm that had, along with other Silicon Valley firms, a great deal of influence early on in the Trump Administration.
Regardless, the crypto industry is certainly ready to move on from this chapter and hopefully avoid what might have been slightly unwelcome influence from the leaders of just one exchange. However, the ‘Winklevoss Twins’ as they are most commonly known, have provided a great deal of support to the President, both in his campaign as well as in their recent donations to a new crypto super PAC. It’s no wonder that Trump likely didn’t want to upset them, and this type of influence demonstrated both the still very nascent development of the still maturing crypto lobby as well as the excitement of the industry over what will be a critical post, with the CFTC set to be one of the key regulators of crypto going forward based on the developing market structure legislation.
Overview Of Selig’s Public Writings on Crypto Policy
Selig wrote an opinion piece in CoinDesk originally written in January 2023, but shown to be updated in June 2024, titled ‘What If Regulators Wrote the Rules for Crypto?’. Overall, the piece largely focused on the failings of the SEC and CFTC at the time in terms of conducting ‘regulation by enforcement’ as opposed to writing rules for crypto. Selig argued under the current laws that each regulator had the ability to write rules covering crypto.
For the CFTC, Selig points to an authority that would allow for leveraged spot crypto trading. “Nonetheless, the CFTC has jurisdiction over offerings of margined, leveraged or financed commodity spot trading to retail investors. Outside the U.S., most crypto exchanges allow retail investors to trade crypto assets on margin. Within the U.S., crypto exchanges must register with the CFTC as a futures exchange to offer crypto-asset margin trading to retail investors,” says Selig. At the time, Selig highlighted that CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham pointed out in 2022 the agency has the authority to allow this.
Existing Authority of the CFTC to Create Rules for Crypto
Pham, currently the Acting Chair of the CFTC, just recently confirmed on X that the agency would be moving forward with this to permit leveraged spot trading for crypto retail investors. The current market structure bill in Congress would potentially provide the CFTC with jurisdiction of all crypto spot markets, but this announcement shows alignment and confirmation of Selig’s beliefs regarding what the CFTC can do under existing law.
The Senate hearing will likely cover aspects of the new market structure bill and how Selig views the potential impact of such a bill on the CFTC and how it would be implemented. Senate Democrats have flagged previously during the Quintenz nomination process their hope to see CFTC Commissioners who are Democrats also nominated by Trump so the process of implementing a market structure bill can be on a bipartisan basis. Currently, the Pham is the only Commissioner at the CFTC and plans to resign upon confirmation of a Chair by the Senate. This would leave Selig as the sole Commissioner and Chair at an agency that permits five Commissioners with at least two from each party.