President Trump’s CFTC chair nominee Brian Quintenz alleged that Tyler Winklevoss attempted to derail his confirmation after Quintenz refused to promise favorable treatment regarding the exchange’s past litigation with the commission.

According to private text messages released by Quintenz on Sept. 10, Winklevoss shared Gemini’s 13-page complaint against the CFTC Inspector General in a July 2025 exchange.

He claimed the agency pursued “dubious false statements charges” and “selectively and unfairly weaponized” enforcement against the company.

Winklevoss described seven years of “lawfare trophy hunting” by the commission in the leaked messages.

Transparency claims

Winklevoss questioned why the CFTC sued Gemini rather than “parties that defrauded us of $10mil” or CBOE. He also questioned why the commission continued pursuing Gemini “after it knew its investigation was started based on a false whistleblower.”

Quintenz consistently refused to make specific commitments, stating that “any decision or response to your complaint should be made by and given the full weight of the confirmed chair.”

He committed only to addressing matters “fully and fairly if and when I am confirmed,” while emphasizing the importance of proper process.

Winklevoss then expressed disappointment that Quintenz hadn’t reviewed their complaint despite previous discussions.

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Additionally, the Gemini co-founder stressed that “cultural reform, which includes rectifying what happened to us, should be the highest priority” and urged Quintenz to align with President Donald Trump’s mandate to end regulatory warfare.

Quintenz explained his approach of waiting for confirmation before forming judgments. He added that he decided “to wait until I can get into the role to get that view as opposed to trying to get it now through current leadership.”

He described having “a very poor experience with that on every important issue or decision so far” when dealing with existing commission staff.

The message release comes two days before Gemini’s planned IPO on Sept. 12.

Quintenz claimed that Winklevoss contacted Trump in an effort to pause his confirmation for undisclosed reasons following their exchange.

He added that he disclosed the discussions with Winklevoss to protect the President from misinformation and demonstrate his commitment to transparency over personal advancement.

Mentioned in this article

A Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into missing text messages from former chair Gary Gensler’s phone between October 2022 and September 2023 has concluded that “avoidable errors” led to their loss. 

The SEC Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigated how nearly a year’s worth of text messages from Gary Gensler were permanently lost between October 2022 and September 2023, during the height of the agency’s crypto enforcement action campaign.

In a report released on Wednesday, the OIG revealed that the SEC’s IT department “implemented a poorly understood and automated policy that caused an enterprise wipe of Gensler’s government-issued mobile device,” which deleted stored text messages and operating system logs.  

The loss was worsened by poor change management, lack of proper backups, ignored system alerts and unaddressed vendor software flaws.

The IT department failed to collect or maintain necessary log data, which is why the commission could not determine why Gensler’s smartphone stopped communicating with the SEC’s mobile device management system.

Key communications about crypto enforcement actions were lost 

The OIG found that some of Gensler’s deleted texts involved SEC enforcement actions against crypto companies and their founders, meaning that key communications about how and when the SEC pursued cases may never be fully known, even to courts, Congress or the public.

Related: Judge has ‘strong views’ about Coinbase inquiry into Gensler’s private msgs

Investigators reviewed about 1,500 messages recovered from colleagues and other records. They determined that the majority were federal records, with around 38% of the recovered text conversations “mission related” concerning matters directly involving SEC senior staff at the time, such as: 

“A May 2023 conversation involving Gensler, his staff, and the Director of the Division of Enforcement about when the SEC would be filing an action against certain crypto asset trading platforms and their founder.”

LATEST: The SEC’s Inspector General released a report on the loss of text messages from former Chair Gary Gensler due to avoidable errors by the agency’s IT office between October 2022 and September 2023. pic.twitter.com/3iWixftGKR

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) September 5, 2025

SEC crackdown on recordkeeping 

Around the same time that Gensler’s messages were disappearing into a black hole, the SEC cracked down on the use of messaging apps. Several global investment banking and financial institutions were charged with violating record-keeping and books-and-records laws under the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act. 

“Finance, ultimately, depends on trust. By failing to honor their recordkeeping and books-and-records obligations, the market participants we have charged today have failed to maintain that trust,” said Gensler at the time. 

Undermining transparency in crypto decisions

The SEC has since disabled text messaging on most devices, notified the National Archives and Records Administration of lost records, introduced Capstone-specific records training for senior officials, and started improving backup practices for senior officials’ devices.

“The loss of Gensler’s text messages may impact the SEC’s response to certain Freedom of Information Act requests,” it stated. 

Gensler, who stepped down in January, was infamous in the crypto community for his bait-and-switch offer to “come in and get registered,” which pre-empted multiple SEC actions against companies that claimed they tried to do exactly that. Enforcement actions against crypto companies reached a 10-year high in 2023.  

“Think about everything that happened in crypto during this time. Basically, FTX collapse through the Grayscale spot BTC ETF lawsuit,” observed NovaDius Wealth Management President Nate Geraci, who added“makes you think.”

“So Gary Gensler’s text messages from his tenure as SEC chairman are forever lost in a mysterious ‘boating accident’ ???,” quipped Custodia Bank founder Caitlin Long. 

Magazine: Korean bill to legalize ICOs, Chinese firm’s Ethereum RWAs mystery: Asia Express