26th Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum – Digital Assets and the Future of Money

Hon. Brian Quintenz, speaking about his experience, mentioned that he started his tenure as a commissioner at the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) in 2017 under Chairman Heath Tarbert. Initially, his focus was on Dodd-Frank and how financial rules were crafted in response to the global financial crisis. Hon. Quintenz expressed his intention to recalibrate what he saw as a Draconian approach to financial markets through overreaching legislation. Hon. Quintenz highlighted the CFTC’s pro-innovation process outlined in statute, which shifts the burden of approving new products onto the regulator only if they object to something an exchange has already deemed compliant with the law. Hon. Quintenz emphasized the importance of this approach, noting the positive impact on innovation in derivatives markets. The approval of Bitcoin Futures became a significant development, placing the CFTC in the midst of the governmental debate on crypto and immersing the agency into the crypto ecosystem.