Targeting CFTC Nominee, Winklevoss Brothers Show Washington Clout
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Targeting CFTC Nominee, Winklevoss Brothers Show Washington Clout
Trump once praised the Winklevoss twins as "male models with extraordinary intelligence."
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Alexander Osipovich, Vicky Ge Huang, Amrith Ramkumar, The Wall Street Journal
Translated by Luffy, Foresight News
Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss are public supporters of President Trump, yet they have long held a grudge against one of his nominees.
Last week, as the Gemini Space Station cryptocurrency company—owned by the billionaire brothers—prepared to go public, their dispute with Brian Quintenz, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), came into the open.
Quintenz released private messages from Tyler expressing frustration over the Biden administration's actions against their company and requesting that the Trump nominee help restart investigations related to their business.
According to conversation screenshots posted by Quintenz on X, Winklevoss wrote in July: "A seven-year legal witch hunt. What they’ve done to us is outrageous."
Quintenz expressed sympathy but declined to comment on Gemini’s recent complaint regarding CFTC actions. Days later, according to people familiar with the matter, the brothers contacted President Trump to request a pause in the nomination process for Gemini. Since then, the nomination has remained stalled.
The 44-year-old Winklevoss brothers, who supported Trump’s campaign and funded pro-Trump political groups, are now demonstrating their influence in Washington. Like other cryptocurrency executives, they are eager to see the CFTC led by leadership friendly to the industry, which plays a key role in regulating digital asset markets.
Quintenz, a crypto-supportive Republican, has won backing from numerous industry groups, making the Winklevoss brothers’ campaign against him puzzling to observers.
Lee Reiners, a lecturer at Duke University and critic of the cryptocurrency industry, said: "This is purely about throwing a tantrum, driven by revenge and punishment... It has no necessary connection to future policy direction."
The brothers, often dubbed the "Winklevii," have a history of high-profile disputes. In the legal battle dramatized in the film *The Social Network*, they accused Harvard classmate Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for creating Facebook. The former Olympic rowers ultimately received a $65 million settlement in cash and stock.
They later became tech investors and began buying bitcoin in 2012 when it was priced below $10. In 2013, they attempted to launch the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking bitcoin, but the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected the proposal due to skepticism.
The brothers launched the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini in 2014 and recently raised $425 million in its initial public offering. They currently hold approximately 75 million shares of Gemini and control 94.7% of voting power.
After an initial surge on its first trading day, Gemini’s stock has fallen more than 20% this week, dropping below its $28 IPO price. Despite strong brand recognition, Gemini has continued to post losses in recent quarters and faces pressure from larger competitors like Coinbase.
During last year’s election, the brothers backed Trump’s presidential campaign and donated nearly $5 million to a pro-crypto group that heavily funded industry-friendly congressional candidates. Last month, the Winklevoss brothers donated 21 million dollars worth of bitcoin to the Digital Freedom Fund, a newly formed pro-crypto, pro-Trump super PAC.
Trump has repeatedly praised the Winklevoss brothers' appearance, calling them "male models with genius IQs" during a Bitcoin conference speech last year—an event marking his full transformation from crypto skeptic to staunch supporter. Earlier this year, the Winklevoss brothers partnered with White House crypto advisor David Sacks, Donald Trump Jr., and other investors to establish a private club in Washington, D.C., called Executive Branch, with a $500,000 entry fee and annual dues.
In messages sent to Quintenz, Tyler Winklevoss referenced Gemini’s $5 million settlement with the CFTC, narrowly reached during the final days of the Biden administration—a sore point for the brothers.
After Trump began his second term, Gemini filed a complaint with the CFTC inspector general, alleging unethical conduct by lawyers involved in the investigation.
In a July conversation with Quintenz, Winklevoss wrote: "I’m disappointed and surprised you haven’t seen, heard, or read our complaint."
Shortly after the brothers contacted Trump, the Senate committee responsible for overseeing the CFTC canceled a vote to advance Quintenz’s nomination, citing "a request from the White House" (the brothers’ outreach to Trump was first reported by Politico). Subsequently, Tyler Winklevoss criticized Quintenz in an interview with the New York Post, saying he was "out of alignment with President Trump."
The Winklevoss brothers have benefited from the Trump administration’s relaxed regulation of cryptocurrencies. On Monday, the SEC and Gemini announced they had reached a "resolution in principle" on a lawsuit from the Biden era. The SEC had previously accused Gemini of violating investor protection laws by offering a deposit product that paid customers interest as high as 8%. After Trump took office, the SEC paused the litigation.
The product collapsed in 2022 when a partner company went bankrupt. New York Attorney General Letitia James separately sued, alleging Gemini misled investors about the product’s safety. Last year, Gemini paid about $50 million to settle with James without admitting wrongdoing.
Like Trump, the Winklevoss brothers have called for retaliation against officials they believe treated them unfairly. Cameron urged the "immediate firing" of SEC lawyers involved in prosecuting crypto firms under Biden. After Gary Gensler, an industry "archenemy" and former SEC chair, returned to teaching at MIT, Tyler said Gemini would not hire any graduates from MIT.
"It’s great to see things shift and the scales rebalancing in our favor," Cameron said at the White House Crypto Summit in March.
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