SEC Crypto Counsel Named to Head CFTC

Selig has been a key player in the SEC’s efforts to fulfill that pro-crypto mandate, according to a Bloomberg report picked up by Decrypt.

The announcement of his nomination was made by White House “crypto czar” David Sacks. “As anyone who knows him will attest, [Selig] is deeply knowledgeable about financial markets and passionate about modernizing our regulatory approach in order to maintain America’s competitiveness in the digital asset era,” Sacks said in a post on X. “Mike has not only been instrumental in driving forward the President’s crypto agenda as Chief Counsel of the SEC Crypto Task Force, he also brings deep experience in traditional commodities markets.”

Selig’s appointment also marks a significant political win for the Trump-allied Winklevoss brothers, founders of crypto exchange Gemini, who lobbied the president successfully to drop his first pick to lead the agency, Brian Quintenz, global head of crypto policy for Andreessen Horowitz.

The CFTC had sued Gemini in 2022 for making “material false or misleading statements” to regulators. The exchange settled the suit for $5 million in January 2025, shortly after the Trump administration took office. Quintenz, a former CFTC commissioner, had recommended increasing the agency’s budget to handle its new responsibilities for regulating the crypto market.

Related: Crypto Execs Get Mixed Message From Capitol Hill On Passage of Market Structure Bill

In addition to crypto regs, Selig would also be responsible for overseeing the CFTC’s approach to regulating the prediction markets, another emerging sector that has thrown up a host of new legal questions. Four states have sued Kalshi, which controls 62% of the global prediction market business, for operating an illegal sports book. In early October it was also hit by a purported class action lawsuit by a Kalshi user in San Francisco for allegedly misrepresenting the legality of its service in California.

The CFTC is currently significantly under-staffed. The agency is normally comprised of five commissioners appointed by the president, three of whom traditionally come from the president’s party and two from the opposition party based on recommendations from the minority leader in the Senate. But the agency currently is operating under a lone acting chair, Caroline Pham.

It was unclear from the Bloomberg report whether Selig’s nomination signaled a plan by the White House to fill out the rest of the five-person commission.

While both the SEC and CFTC have worked to advance the president’s policy to enable trading of crypto and digital assets, full realization of his crypto agenda awaits congressional action to establish the legal foundations for crypto financial markets. Congress passed the GENIUS Act in July, setting rules for the issuance and trading of stablecoins, followed by House’s passage of the Clarity Act establishing crypto jurisdictional domains for the two agencies. But a similar market structure bill has stalled in the Senate and appears unlikely to get a vote this year.

In his own post on X, Selig said, he will “work tirelessly to facilitate Well-Functioning Commodity Markets, promote Freedom, Competition and Innovation, and help the President make the United States the Crypto Capital of the World.”