White House Nominates Four to Fill Vacant SEC and CFTC Seats

The White House has nominated four individuals to fill vacant commissioner seats at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the first such nominations in roughly a year. The slate is bipartisan, and at least three of the four nominees bring direct digital asset policy experience.

Nathan Anonick of Virginia and Matthew Rowland of the District of Columbia were nominated as CFTC commissioners. Kristin N. Johnson of Michigan and Steven Levine of Maryland were nominated as SEC members. Anonick and Levine are Republicans; Johnson and Rowland are Democrats. The Senate Agriculture Committee will consider the CFTC nominees, while the Senate Banking Committee will handle the SEC picks.

Who are the nominees?

The backgrounds suggest crypto policy will not be new terrain for any of them.

• Nathan Anonick serves as legislative counsel to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman and worked as a lead negotiator on the Agriculture Committee's portion of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.
• Matthew Rowland is a CFTC attorney detailed to the Senate Agriculture Committee. He also worked on the Clarity Act and the Agriculture Committee's 2024 crypto bill.
• Kristin Johnson is a former CFTC commissioner who focused on digital assets, risk management, and market integrity during her tenure.
• Steven Levine most recently served as General Counsel and senior advisor at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and previously worked at the SEC as counsel and deputy chief of staff to Commissioner Mark Uyeda.

That is two Clarity Act veterans at the CFTC and an SEC nominee steeped in the Uyeda orbit. The pattern points toward continuity on digital asset legislation rather than a fresh direction.

What does Johnson bring to the SEC?

Johnson has spoken regularly about crypto and the need for regulation around crypto asset custody, decentralized finance, and artificial intelligence. Her record at the CFTC centered on risk management and market integrity.

Notably, she is a Democrat returning to a market regulator under a Republican administration. Her selection suggests the White House wanted a counterweight with prior commissioner experience rather than an outsider. Whether her advocacy for DeFi and custody rules translates into SEC rulemaking remains untested, and the source does not say.

Who does Levine replace?

Levine was nominated to succeed Hester Peirce, a vocal advocate for the crypto industry. Peirce led the agency's Crypto Task Force and assisted Chairman Paul Atkins' Project Crypto, an effort to modernize securities regulation to accommodate crypto innovation and advance the goal of making the U.S. the "crypto capital of the world."

Levine's prior service under Uyeda, one of the commission's more crypto-sympathetic members, signals he is unlikely to reverse that posture. Still, a nomination is not a confirmation, and his policy positions on specific questions — token issuance, custody, secondary trading — remain on the record only in outline.

Industry reaction

Ji Kim, chief executive of the Crypto Council for Innovation, congratulated the nominees in a post on X, stating that strong bipartisan representation is essential to developing durable rules that safeguard markets, protect consumers, and support innovation.

"Both the CFTC and SEC will continue to play central and consequential roles in our financial markets, and together these nominees bring a wealth of experience and expertise that will help ensure continued American leadership," Kim wrote.

Industry praise at the nomination stage is routine and carries little evidentiary weight. The real test arrives in committee.

The nominations now move to the Senate Agriculture and Banking Committees, which control the confirmation calendar and have not yet scheduled hearings.