Congressional lawmakers confirmed the nomination of Rostin Behnam, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Committee who had been serving as acting chairperson, to presume his position on a more permanent basis.

In a Wednesday evening vocalism vote, members of the U.S. Senate approved President Joe Biden's selection to lead the CFTC. Behnam has served as a commissioner since 2022 and acting chair following the departure of Heath Tarbert in January.

At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commission on Agronomics, Nutrition, and Forestry in October, Behnam requested lawmakers consider expanding the authority of the CFTC, given the emerging digital nugget market. He said that the CFTC had been "aggressively pursuing enforcement cases" in the crypto space, likening its approach to police officers doing their duty.

"Given the size, the scope and the scale of this emerging market, how it'south interfacing and affecting retail customers, and with the scale of the growth being and then rapid, potential financial stability risks in the future, I call back it's critically important to have a main cop on the vanquish," said Behnam at the time.

Related: SEC has no dominance over crypto, CFTC commissioner argues

The confirmation came the same twenty-four hour period President Biden announced his picks for 2 additional commissioners at the CFTC. A Wednesday notice from the White House shows he plans to nominate Summer Mersinger and Citi director Caroline Pham to the regulatory body. Mersinger served as chief of staff to Commissioner Dawn Stump as well as the director of the Part of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs. Both must be confirmed by the Senate.

Only two commissioners are currently serving at the CFTC out of the normal five, and with the expected departure of Stump in Feb 2022, Biden will have the opportunity to completely reshape the Commission with 4 open positions. In December, the U.S. president announced he planned to nominate Emory University police professor Kristin Johnson and Christy Goldsmith Romero, a former senior counsel in the Securities and Exchange Committee'due south Enforcement Division.

Related: CFTC commissioner: Agency doesn't take enforcement resources without Congress

Such a large modify to the CFTC leadership could easily take an impact on the regulation and enforcement of the crypto space. Currently, the Securities and Commutation Commission, the CFTC and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network handle digital asset regulation in the land, simply with dissimilar jurisdictional claims, resulting in a patchwork approach companies must navigate to legally operate. During Benham's fourth dimension every bit interim chair, the Commission slapped Tether and Bitfinex with a $42.v million fine and reached a settlement with crypto exchange BitMEX to pay a $100 million civil monetary penalty.