Outgoing US Commodity Futures Trading Commission commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero says the exodus of the agency’s top brass is “not a great situation” for crypto regulations.

The CFTC could be headed by just one commissioner once the other four depart later this year, which Goldsmith Romero said in a May 27 interview at the Brookings Institution will make creating regulations harder because it leaves a less diverse pool of opinions. 

“I think it’s not a great situation if you have one person who’s determining what the rules should be; you lose the benefit of this back-and-forth, this push-and-pull as to what’s the right thing to do,” she said.

“I’ve always wanted to hear from my fellow commissioners about what makes sense to them, and there are many things that they’ve convinced me of and many things that I’ve convinced them of, so I think it does a disservice to regulation.”

Goldsmith Romero’s last day will be May 31, leaving Commissioner Kristin Johnson as the CFTC’s sole Democrat, who has also announced plans to depart the agency before 2026. 

Republican Commissioner Summer Mersinger is also leaving on May 30 to join the crypto advocacy organization the Blockchain Association as CEO and Republican acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham said on May 15 that she plans to move “to the private sector” if Brian Quintenz were to be confirmed head of the agency.

If Quintenz is confirmed, and Pham follows through on leaving, it would leave him solely in charge of the agency. Five commissioners are supposed to make up the CFTC, and no more than three can be from the same political party.

Goldsmith Romero said that during her tenure, all the commissioners had different perspectives and experiences that, when brought together, were “really helpful.”

“So what happens if the CFTC gets down to one and gets new authority for crypto? It’s going to be really, really hard; you’re not going to have the same push and pull,” she said.

The Trump administration has floated the idea of handing the reins of crypto regulation to the CFTC in the past. Congressional Republicans have also been drafting bills to give the CFTC greater oversight over the industry, 

Retail customer Definition should be CFTC priority 

In the future, Goldsmith Romero thinks the CFTC should work on defining a retail customer to ensure the influx of fresh investments in “crypto and some other products” has a similar retail customer protection regime to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Related: Crypto perp futures coming ‘very soon,’ says CFTC’s Mersinger

“I came from the SEC with an investor protection regime, you want people to know their rights and risk if they take a risk and they lose that’s on them,” she said.

“But you want to have some basic things like exchanges that are registered that have some basic requirements and have to follow the law and this is, I think, the main thing that needs to happen.”

Goldsmith Romero said other “extremely basic” rules could include a ban against co-mingling a company’s assets with customer funds, and brokers, exchanges and clearing houses being required to register with the SEC, the CFTC or in some cases, both.

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US President Donald Trump’s pick to chair the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has disclosed millions of dollars worth of assets, along with his various ties to crypto-related organizations.

In paperwork released by the US Office of Government Ethics on May 25, Brian Quintenz disclosed his key positions in crypto and market firms that would directly relate to the CFTC’s regulatory priorities and disclosed assets worth at least $3.4 million, according to a May 27 Bloomberg report. 

Quintenz was a CFTC commissioner from 2017 to 2021 and is currently the global head of crypto policy at Andreessen Horowitz, a position he said he will step down from if the Senate confirms him as CFTC chair. 

He holds an interest in three AH Capital Management investment funds, CNK Fund III, CNK Seed 1 Fund, and CNK IV Fund, plus capital commitments to related general partners. 

He is also a board member of the prediction markets platform Kalshi and owns stock and unvested stock options in the firm, along with stock and vested stock options in the finance and lending brokerage Next Level Derivatives.

His portfolio intersects directly with two major CFTC policy areas, crypto asset regulation and prediction markets. Kalashi settled a major legal battle with the CFTC over election betting earlier this month. 

Quintenz outlined the steps he will take to avoid conflicts of interest if confirmed as CFTC chairman in an agreement letter to John Einstman, the CFTC’s Designated Agency Ethics Official, dated May 21. 

“I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter in which I know that I have a financial interest directly and predictably affected by the matter,” he stated. 

An excerpt of Brian Quintenz’s letter. Source: US Office of Government Ethics

He added that he will resign from all positions and divest conflicting assets within 90 days of confirmation. This includes recusing himself from a16z-related matters for two years, recusing from Kalashi matters for one year, and forfeiting unvested stock options at multiple companies. 

Related: Crypto perp futures coming ‘very soon,’ says CFTC’s Mersinger

Quintenz also said he would comply with standard conflict of interest laws and obtain ethics briefings, but will retain unpaid trustee positions for two family trusts. 

Trump nominated Quintenz to head the financial regulator in February and is currently awaiting Senate confirmation. 

CFTC commissioner exodus continues

The CFTC has seen an exodus of commissioners recently amid concern over the Trump administration’s crypto embrace, with potentially all four remaining positions being up for grabs this year.

On May 21, Democrat Commissioner Kristin Johnson announced that she plans to depart the agency later this year.

Meanwhile, Commissioners Summer Mersinger and Christy Goldsmith Romero previously said they would respectively step down on May 30 and May 31.

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US Representative Bryan Steil wants lawmakers to stop adding “non-germane items” into two key crypto bills, claiming that doing so is slowing the implementation of a regulatory framework for the industry.

“Individuals, when they see legislation that’s going to move forward, want to attach non-germane items to any bill that’s going to move through and be signed into law,” Steil, a Republican from Wisconsin who chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on crypto, told Cointelegraph at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas on May 27.

“We have to restrain ourselves from that instinct and attempt by our colleagues — both sides of the aisle,” he added.

Congress’s biggest crypto backers hope to pass the stablecoin-regulating Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act, or GENIUS Act, and a crypto market structure bill before a month-long August recess.

Democratic lawmakers had pulled support for the GENIUS Act on May 8, citing concerns about US President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures potentially conflicting with his presidential duties

Stable Coin and Market Structure legislation will unlock the golden age of digital assets. pic.twitter.com/lSbX5p2Wqt

— Bryan Steil (@RepBryanSteil) May 27, 2025

While the GENIUS Act eventually moved forward in the Senate with a May 20 procedural vote, Steil said the concerns related to Trump aren’t relevant to the bills themselves.

“They’re not germane to the legislative text. The legislative text is focused on putting forward a regulatory framework in which we can enforce actions to strengthen this broader market, in particular to the benefit of American consumers and innovation and development here.”

Democratic Senator Marker Warner voiced a similar sentiment before the GENIUS Act passed on May 19, stating that the US couldn’t “afford to keep standing on the sidelines” while the crypto industry evolves.

“We cannot allow that corruption to blind us to the broader reality: blockchain technology is here to stay,” Warner said. “If American lawmakers don’t shape it, others will — and not in ways that serve our interests or democratic values.”

Steil credits Democrats

Steil acknowledged that Democratic lawmakers have made an effort to better understand the crypto industry’s gripes with how the Biden administration handled regulation and enforcement of the sector.

He said the political landscape and nature of crypto-related negotiations “looked a little different,” but over 70 Democrats in the last Congress signaled the need for clear crypto rules when the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) passed the House in May 2024.

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“I think that was a great practice run,” said Steil.

The FIT21 Act wasn’t enacted before the end of the last Congress However, House Agricultural and Financial Services Committee chairs Glenn Thompson and French Hill introduced a new crypto market structure bill on May 5 that aims to build on FIT21.

If lawmakers pass those bills, they will have the opportunity to explore a lot of other “interesting, creative ideas” in the space, Steil said.

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Additional reporting by Turner Wright