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Republicans in the Senate<\/span> are racing to confirm a lawyer with a long list of crypto industry clients as the next Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair, a position that will hold wide sway over the industry.<\/p>\n CFTC nominee Mike Selig has served dozens of crypto clients ranging from venture capital firms to a bear-themed blockchain company based in the Cayman Islands, according to ethics records obtained by The Intercept.<\/p>\n Those records show the breadth of potential conflicts of interest for Selig, who, if confirmed, will serve on the CFTC alone due to an exodus of other commissioners.<\/p>\n With a Bitcoin crash wiping out a trillion dollars of value<\/a> in the past few weeks, the industry is counting on friendly regulators in Washington to give it a boost.<\/p>\n Senate Agriculture Committee members voted 12-11 on party lines<\/a> in favor of Selig on November 20, setting up a vote in the full Senate. The committee vote came a day after a hearing in which Selig dodged straightforward questions about whether CFTC staffing should be expanded as it takes on a role overseeing digital assets, and whether Donald Trump was right to pardon Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.<\/a><\/p>\n One thing Selig was committal on, however, was the danger of over-enforcement \u2014 leading the consumer group Better Markets to criticize him as the \u201cwrong choice\u201d to lead the CFTC.<\/p>\n \u201cThe CFTC is facing unprecedented strain as crypto and prediction market oversight has been layered into its traditional derivatives market oversight responsibilities,\u201d said<\/a> Benjamin Schiffrin, the nonprofit group\u2019s director of securities policy. \u201cDuring his hearing, Mr. Selig showed little interest in regulation on either count and was unable to answer the simplest of questions.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Selig has drawn widespread backing from crypto industry groups in the wake of his October 25 nomination, which came after an earlier Trump nominee<\/a> was derailed by the Winklevoss twins, who sued Mark Zuckerberg over the creation of Facebook<\/a> before launching a lucrative career in crypto.<\/p>\n Selig\u2019s resume shows why the industry is so comfortable with him. Early in his career he was a law clerk for J. Christopher Giancarlo, the CFTC chair during Trump\u2019s first term who calls himself CryptoDad.<\/p>\n After the CFTC, Selig joined Giancarlo at the white-shoe law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. His client list there extended from major crypto investors to smaller startups, many of them with some presence in the derivatives or commodities worlds, according to a form he filed with the Office of Government Ethics after his nomination.<\/p>\n Selig\u2019s clients included Amir Haleem, the CEO of a crypto company that was the target of a yearslong Securities and Exchange Commission probe<\/a>; Architect Financial Technologies, which last year announced<\/a> a CFTC-regulated digital derivatives brokerage; Berachain, the Caymans-based blockchain company whose pseudonymous co-founders include \u201cSmokey the Bera\u201d and \u201cPapa Bear<\/a>\u201d; CoinList, a crypto exchange that allows traders to access newly listed digital tokens; Deribit, a crypto options exchange; Diamond Standard, which offers commodities products that combine diamonds and the blockchain; Input Output Global, one of the developers of the decentralized blockchain Cardano; and the U.S. branch of eToro, an Israeli crypto trading platform.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes, I think the crypto community is excited about Mike.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n At least one of Selig\u2019s former clients, Alluvial Finance, met with staffers of the crypto task force where Selig has served as chief counsel since the start of the second Trump administration, according to SEC records<\/a>.<\/p>\n Selig\u2019s clients have also included trade groups including the Proof of Stake Alliance, which advocates for friendly tax policies for a type of blockchain, and the Blockchain Association, which represents dozens of investment firms and large crypto companies in Washington.<\/p>\nFriendly to Crypto<\/strong><\/h2>\n