CFTC’s Goldsmith Romero says commissioner exodus ‘not a great situation’

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, 

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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