Biden considering Gary Gensler for Deputy Treasury Secretary

With 55 days until his inauguration as President of the United States, Joe Biden is reportedly considering the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for a permanent position in his administration. 

According to a Nov. 25 report from CNBC, the president-elect is floating Gary Gensler for a position as Deputy Treasury Secretary starting in 2021. The report states that “people familiar with the matter” have mentioned Gensler as a likely candidate for the role. He would be working under former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, whom Biden is reportedly planning to nominate as Secretary of the Treasury.

Yellen and Gensler have expressed significantly different views on digital assets and blockchain technology during their careers. Gensler is currently a senior advisor at the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative, which conducts research on blockchain and digital currency with a goal of facilitating development and adoption of the technology. However, Yellen has been critical of crypto in the past, calling Bitcoin “anything but useful” in the months following the 2017 bull run.

Gensler served as chairman for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, under President Barack Obama from 2009 until 2014, and is currently acting as a financial advisor on the Biden-Harris transition team. He was known as a stringent regulator during his time as CFTC head, overseeing reforms to the $400 trillion financial derivatives market.

Advisors to the President-elect have reportedly said they will be announcing candidates for additional positions starting next week.