Most Influential: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is poised to become a primary market regulator for cryptocurrencies and businesses, should legislation pending before Congress become law. And at the beginning of the year, former CFTC Commissioner and Andreessen Horowitz Crypto Head of Policy Brian Quintenz seemed set to take charge of that agency, putting the pro-crypto policymaker at the forefront of writing rules the crypto industry has long sought — that is, until the committee abruptly announced it would postpone the vote on his nomination, twice, eventually saying the White House asked it not to hold the vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee, without further explanation.

This feature is a part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2025 list.

Gemini (GEMI) co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss took credit for pausing and ultimately sinking Quintenz’s nomination, indicating just how much influence the billionaire crypto executives and prominent Trump donors can wield within the current administration while derailing the confirmation process for a regulator much of the rest of the crypto industry wanted to see installed.

“Many in our industry have significant concerns about this nomination,” Tyler Winklevoss told CoinDesk in August, shortly after the confirmation votes were postponed. “Mr. Quintenz is not aligned with the president’s stated agenda and objectives.”

Quintenz, for his part, largely kept quiet about the turmoil surrounding his nomination until September, when he released messages he’d exchanged with Winklevoss, where Winklevoss appeared to ask Quintenz to take a firm position on how the CFTC handled a case against Gemini that was settled in January 2025.

“I believe these texts make it clear what they were after from me,” Quintenz said in a social media post, adding that he believed Winklevoss’s communications with the President misled Trump.

"I know we had spoken about this in the winter where I recalled my original extreme disappointment at [the Enforcement Division] for pursuing this so aggressively," Quintenz said in one of the messages posted. "I commit to you to having a fair and reasonable review of the matter and the division and individuals involved to determine if they acted inappropriately."

Despite his push, the White House withdrew his nomination a few weeks later.

• As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
• GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
• Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.

• Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said she is negotiating with the White House on behalf of Senate Democrats trying to insert ethics provisions into Congress' market structure legislation.
• Lawmakers should reveal a new draft market structure bill by the end of the week and hold a markup hearing next week, she said.

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