CFTC commissioner will step down to become Blockchain Association CEO

Published

5 months ago

May 14, 2025

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CFTC commissioner will step down to become Blockchain Association CEO

Summer Mersinger, one of four commissioners currently serving at the US financial regulatory body Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), will become the next CEO of the digital asset advocacy group the Blockchain Association (BA).

In a May 14 notice, the Blockchain Association said its current CEO, Kristin Smith, would step down for Mersinger on May 16, allowing an interim head of the group to work until the CFTC commissioner assumes the role on June 2. Though her term at the CFTC was expected to last until April 2028, the BA said Mersinger is set to leave the agency on May 30.

The departure of Mersinger, who has served in one of the CFTC’s Republican seats since 2022, opens the way for US President Donald Trump to nominate another member to the financial regulator. Rules require that no more than three commissioners belong to the same political party.

Like the Securities and Exchange Commission, the CFTC is one of the significant US financial regulators whose policies impact digital assets. Lawmakers in Congress are currently working to pass a market structure bill to clarify the roles each agency could take in overseeing and regulating crypto.

New leadership at the Blockchain Association had been expected since Smith announced her departure on April 1 to become the next president of the Solana Policy Institute. A spokesperson for the Blockchain Association had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment at the time of publication.

Some of the biggest crypto firms in the US, including Coinbase, Ripple Labs and Chainlink Labs, are members of the Association. The organization “support[s] a future-forward, pro-innovation national policy and regulatory framework for the crypto economy,” according to its website.

Changing the leadership at a major US financial regulator

A nominee of former US President Joe Biden, Mersinger has called for standardized crypto-related policies and said the CFTC was the “ideal regulator for the cryptocurrency spot market.” Some expected she would lead the regulator following the election of Trump and the departure of then-CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam, but Commissioner Caroline Pham took on the role in an acting capacity in January.

Trump chose former commissioner Brian Quintenz to chair the CFTC in February, but his nomination has not moved through the Senate for a vote in roughly three months. Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero reportedly said she plans to leave the agency once Quintenz is confirmed, potentially giving Trump the chance to nominate three new commissioners to fill the five-seat panel.

Any CFTC commissioner picked by the president needs a majority vote in the Senate to be confirmed for a five-year term or to fill in for a resigning member.

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Politics

Bankman-Fried says his biggest mistake was handing FTX to new CEO before bankruptcy

Published

3 hours ago

October 4, 2025

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Bankman-Fried says his biggest mistake was handing FTX to new CEO before bankruptcy

Sam Bankman-Fried claimed that handing over FTX to its current CEO was the “single biggest mistake” that prevented him from saving the exchange.

Politics

Kemi Badenoch says Tories will quit ECHR if they win next election

Published

8 hours ago

October 4, 2025

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Kemi Badenoch says Tories will quit ECHR if they win next election

The Conservative Party will leave a key human rights treaty if it wins the election, its leader Kemi Badenoch has said.

Ms Badenoch announced the policy to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) ahead of the Conservative Party’s conference next week.

Despite many Tory MPs having expressed displeasure with the treaty, and the court that upholds treaty rights in recent years, it had not been party policy for the UK to exit it.

The move follows a review on the impact of the UK’s ECHR membership conducted by shadow attorney general Baron Wolfson.

Lord Wolfson’s nearly 200-page report said the ECHR had impacted government policy in numerous areas.

The report said this includes limiting government’s ability to address immigration issues, potentially hampering restrictions on climate change policy, and impacting government ability to prioritise British citizens for social housing and public services.

But leaving the ECHR would “not be a panacea to all the issues that have arisen in recent years”, Lord Wolfson said.

It comes after the Reform Party in August said they would take the UK out of the ECHR if elected.

The Conservatives have increasingly come under threat from Reform and are being trailed in the polls by them.

What is the ECHR?

The ECHR was established in the 1950s, drafted in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust, to protect people from serious human rights violations, with Sir Winston Churchill as a driving force.

It’s 18 sections guarantee rights such as the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to a fair trial, the right to private and family life and the right to freedom of expression.

It has been used to halt the deportation of migrants in 13 out of 29 UK cases since 1980.

A political issue

Leaving the ECHR would breach the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the peace settlement deal between the British and Irish governments on how Northern Ireland should be governed.

Labour has in recent days said it was considering how Article 3, the prohibition on torture, and Article 8,
the right to respect for private and family life, are interpreted. The sections have been used to halt deportation attempts.

The Liberal Democrats and Greens are in favour of the ECHR.

A general election is not expected until 2029.