A New York Times investigation published on Sunday has exposed what may be the most significant regulatory scandal in crypto history.
According to the NYT report, based on agency documents and interviews with more than 30 current and former officials, senior career officials at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission were suspended, placed under internal investigation, and pushed out of the agency after raising concerns about three crypto and prediction market companies.
The three companies are Polymarket, Crypto.com, and a Gemini affiliate called Gemini Titan. All three have documented business ties to the Trump family.
The officials who flagged problems weren’t junior analysts with grudges. They were experienced enforcement professionals who raised specific, documented concerns about consumer protection, fraud safeguards, and regulatory compliance. Their reward for doing their jobs was administrative leave, internal investigations for which they were never given reasons, and eventual departure from the agency.
Meanwhile, the people who overruled them went on to take lucrative private sector jobs at the very companies they helped approve.
What the Career Officials Actually Flagged
The concerns raised by CFTC career staff weren’t vague complaints. They were specific, substantive regulatory issues tied to each of the three companies.
On Polymarket, staff warned that the platform lacked adequate fraud protections for users. Polymarket had already paid a $1.4 million penalty to the CFTC in 2022 and agreed to restrictions that effectively barred US users from the platform. Now, it was negotiating to lift those exact restrictions and reopen to American traders. Career officials questioned whether the fraud concerns that prompted the original penalty had actually been resolved.
On Crypto.com, staff raised concerns that the platform was not treating small bettors fairly. The details of those concerns weren’t fully disclosed in the report, but they were significant enough that experienced enforcement officials felt compelled to flag them formally.
On Gemini Titan, the concerns were procedural but serious. Staff said the affiliate had not completed the required regulatory review before operating. Despite that incomplete review, the application was approved. In one case, then-acting Chair Caroline Pham’s senior counsel, Brigitte Weyls, reportedly sent staff a draft memo recommending approval of Gemini Titan before the staff had finished their own assessment. Standard practice requires career staff to write those recommendations independently.
Gemini Titan received its Designated Contract Market license on December 10, 2025, after a five-year review. It subsequently obtained a Derivatives Clearing Organization license in April 2026.
The Trump Family Connections
The NYT investigation maps specific business relationships between all three companies and the Trump family.
Donald Trump Jr. serves as an advisor to Polymarket and has investment ties through his venture firm. The platform gained massive attention during the 2024 presidential election, when it became the go-to platform for real-money political prediction markets.
Crypto.com has a direct partnership with Trump Media & Technology Group. Trump Media, which holds over $500 million in Bitcoin and Cronos tokens on its balance sheet, acquired its crypto position through a deal structured with Crypto.com.
The Gemini connections run through the Winklevoss twins, who founded the exchange and have been prominent supporters of the current administration’s crypto policies.
The NYT doesn’t allege that Trump personally ordered the CFTC to clear the way for these companies. But the pattern it documents, career officials raising legitimate concerns about firms with Trump family ties and then being removed while those firms receive approvals, raises questions that go to the heart of regulatory independence.
The Revolving Door
Perhaps the most damaging detail in the entire investigation is what happened after the officials who overruled the career staff left the CFTC.
Caroline Pham, who served as acting CFTC Chair and intervened on behalf of all three companies, left the agency and joined MoonPay, a cryptocurrency payments company that has a business partnership with Polymarket. She went from helping Polymarket navigate its regulatory restrictions to working at a company that directly benefits from Polymarket’s success.
Brigitte Weyls, the senior counsel who reportedly sent the pre-written recommendation memo for Gemini Titan’s approval, became general counsel at Gemini Titan itself. She went from helping approve the company’s application to working for the company she approved.
These moves aren’t illegal. Revolving door transitions between regulators and the industries they oversee are common in Washington. But the speed and directness of these particular transitions, from blocking enforcement of concerns about specific companies to taking paid positions at those same companies, is striking even by Washington standards.
The current state of the CFTC makes the situation worse. With Pham gone, Michael Selig serves as the agency’s sole commissioner and acting chair. Selig previously represented crypto firms as a corporate lawyer. The agency that’s supposed to be independently overseeing the crypto derivatives market is now run by a single person whose career was built serving the industry he’s tasked with regulating.
Crypto Enforcement Has Essentially Stopped
The numbers tell the story of an agency that has fundamentally changed its approach to the crypto industry.
Under the Biden administration, the CFTC brought over 80 crypto-related enforcement actions. Under the current administration, that number has dropped to two. Both of those cases targeted individual operators rather than major platforms.
The CFTC has also dropped at least five active crypto investigations that were underway when the new administration took office. Current and former staffers told the NYT that a clear message emerged within the agency: don’t provoke the crypto and prediction market industries.
For crypto companies, that dramatic reduction in enforcement creates a more permissive operating environment. For consumers who use those platforms, it removes a layer of protection that existed specifically to ensure companies play by the rules.
The contrast with other agencies is notable. The Treasury Department, through OFAC, has been aggressively sanctioning crypto-linked money-laundering networks, freezing $515 million in USDT, and targeting the Sinaloa Cartel’s crypto operations. Tether has been cooperating with over 340 law enforcement agencies. But the CFTC, the primary regulator for crypto derivatives and prediction markets, has effectively stepped back from enforcement.
Why This Matters Beyond Politics
It’s tempting to view this story through a purely political lens. The current administration is pro-crypto. The previous administration was more aggressive on enforcement. The pendulum swings.
But the implications go deeper than partisan politics. The CFTC is responsible for overseeing markets that handle billions of dollars in daily trading volume. Prediction markets, crypto derivatives, perpetual futures, and commodity-linked tokens all fall under its jurisdiction. When the agency’s enforcement capability is gutted, and the career officials who understand how to identify fraud and manipulation are removed, the entire market operates with fewer guardrails.
That might not matter during a bull market when everyone is making money. But when markets turn and fraud surfaces, as it always eventually does, the absence of effective regulatory oversight will be felt by the people who can least afford it: retail users who trusted that someone was watching.
The crypto industry has spent years arguing that it wants regulation, not prohibition. Clear rules, fair enforcement, and a level playing field. The NYT investigation suggests that what parts of the industry actually wanted was something different: a regulator that doesn’t enforce anything against the right companies.
Whether that’s a fair characterization of the entire industry or just a handful of politically connected firms will be debated for months. But the facts documented in the investigation, career officials removed for doing their jobs, approvals granted despite incomplete reviews, and regulators taking jobs at the companies they approved, speak for themselves.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk. Always conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.
