Trump nominates two SEC and two CFTC commissioners, including a successor to Hester Peirce

President Donald Trump has nominated two people to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and two to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the agencies that oversee US securities and derivatives markets and much of the crypto industry. The White House sent the four nominations to the Senate on Thursday, November 12, 2026.

Who was nominated

The White House notice lists four names.

• Steven Levine, of Maryland, to be a member of the SEC for a term expiring June 5, 2030, in place of Hester Peirce, whose term expired.
• Kristin N. Johnson, of Michigan, to be a member of the SEC for a term expiring June 5, 2029, in place of Caroline Crenshaw, whose term expired.
• Nathan Anonick, of Virginia, to be a CFTC commissioner for a term expiring June 19, 2031, in place of Rostin Behnam, whose term expired.
• Matthew Rowland, of the District of Columbia, to be a CFTC commissioner for the rest of a term expiring April 13, 2028, in place of Summer Mersinger.

The notice does not give the nominees' parties or backgrounds. Levine and Anonick are Republicans and Johnson and Rowland are Democrats, according to Cointelegraph and The Block. CoinDesk was more cautious about Levine, writing that he appears to be a Republican based on his LinkedIn profile. Anonick and Rowland both worked on the CLARITY Act, the crypto market structure bill, according to Cointelegraph and The Block. Johnson, a former CFTC commissioner, argued for stronger customer protections and conflict-of-interest rules for crypto companies while she was at the agency, Cointelegraph reported.

Why the seats matter

Both agencies are short of members. Only two of the SEC's five seats are filled, by Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda, according to the SEC's list of commissioners, and Chairman Michael Selig is the only member listed on the CFTC's commissioners page. Both agencies say that no more than three of their five commissioners may belong to the same political party.

Peirce led the SEC's Crypto Task Force and was one of the agency's best-known advocates for clearer crypto rules; she left in October, Cointelegraph reported. Levine's views on crypto regulation are less publicly known, the outlet said.

Selig called the two CFTC nominees "two strong bipartisan picks," according to Cointelegraph.

What happens next

SEC nominees go before the Senate Banking Committee and CFTC nominees before the Senate Agriculture Committee, and each then needs a majority vote of the full Senate, Cointelegraph reported. The calendar is short: Democrats were projected to win control of Congress in the November 3 elections, and the new Senate is seated in January.

What it could mean for traders

In our assessment, the nominations matter less for any single rule than for who sits on the two commissions that write and enforce the rules. The CFTC has one sitting member and the SEC has two, and several open questions, from who regulates prediction markets to how crypto tokens are classified, sit with these two agencies. The CFTC is also being sued over its approval of stock perpetual futures. Whether any of the four is confirmed before January is not known, and nothing in the notice says how they would vote.