President Donald Trump sent four nominations to the U.S. Senate on Thursday – his first batch of Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission picks of the term – including Steven Levine, who would succeed Hester Peirce after her October departure from the SEC. The package is the most significant signal yet of how the administration intends to staff the agencies that will shape crypto policy through the next chapter of market-structure rulemaking.
The nominations arrive ahead of January’s change in chamber control, giving the Senate a compressed window to act. Each pick requires a favorable floor vote, and the timing means the confirmation fight will double as a proxy battle over the crypto regulatory agenda.
Who Trump nominated to the SEC and CFTC
For the SEC, Trump named Steven Levine, a Republican, to the seat vacated by Peirce – the libertarian-leaning commissioner known in industry circles as “Crypto Mom” for her long-running advocacy of digital asset rule clarity. Levine’s term would run to June 2030. He was joined by Kristin N. Johnson, a Democrat and former CFTC commissioner, whose term would expire in June 2029.
At the CFTC, the president nominated Nathan Anonick, a Republican attached to the Senate Agriculture Committee’s majority staff and closely tied to the CLARITY Act market-structure legislation, for a term to 2031. Matthew Rowland, a Democrat also linked to the CLARITY Act, was nominated to complete a term running to April 2028.
Notably, it marks the first time Trump has nominated Democrats to either agency in his term – a bipartisan pairing at each regulator that suggests an explicit strategy of putting confirmable names forward before Congress shifts.
What the nominees mean for crypto policy
The SEC is currently run by Chairman Paul Atkins alongside Commissioner Mark Uyeda, so Levine’s confirmation would restore a fuller complement at a regulator already busy implementing the “Regulation Crypto Assets” framework proposed in August. At the CFTC, the new commissioners would inherit the agency’s onshoring of crypto perpetual futures and its push to become the primary federal cop on digital asset trading – turf that the stalled CLARITY Act would formalize.
Both Anonick and Rowland’s ties to the CLARITY Act matter: the bill failed cloture 49-50 in September and is caught in the stablecoin-yield fight, but staffing the CFTC with hands-on architects of the legislation keeps the market-structure pipeline warm for reintroduction.
What happens next in the Senate
The nominations now move to committee hearings – the Senate Banking Committee for the SEC picks, Senate Agriculture for the CFTC – before floor votes. With Democrats controlling both chambers after the midterms, expect tough questions on enforcement posture, the innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues, and stablecoin oversight.
Peirce’s successor, in particular, will be watched for continuity. Her absence has been felt since October; a confirmed Levine would finally fill the seat around which much of the SEC’s crypto docket has orbited.
