CFTC seeks to unwind Gemini settlement in unusual enforcement reversal

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CFTC seeks Gemini settlement reversal

Highlights

CFTC and Gemini jointly petition U.S. District Court to vacate a January 2025 settlement, citing unreliable whistleblower and concealed evidence.
CFTC admits deficiencies in original evidence and states the complaint against Gemini for inflating Bitcoin futures data should not have been filed.
The reversal follows Trump-linked political scrutiny, with Gemini co-founders’ $1 million donations, leadership changes, and motion language echoing private Winklevoss communications.

Court filing challenges basis of Gemini case

As reported by Cointelegraph, the CFTC and Gemini Trust Company ask the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to vacate the judgment in a case first filed in June 2022, reversing a settlement the company reached with the regulator in January 2025.

In a motion filed Wednesday, the agency says it is seeking relief after concluding that a whistleblower was "not to be credible" and that evidence was concealed by the commission’s previous leadership. The filing says Gemini’s former chief operating officer made false statements tied to the company’s Bitcoin futures pre-certification review, while the original complaint had alleged inflated trading activity and trading volumes that misrepresented user demand.

According to the filing, the CFTC now agrees there were significant deficiencies in the Division of Enforcement’s evidence and that the complaint should not have been filed. Tim Massad, former CFTC chair and a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, says such a reversal on a settled case is "extraordinarily unusual" and adds that he knows of nothing similar happening before.

Political scrutiny builds around agency shift

Massad says the public deserves a clearer explanation for the reversal, especially as the move comes after the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission drop several crypto-related enforcement actions and investigations following Donald Trump’s return to office. There had been no public docket filings in Gemini’s case after Jan. 6, 2025, before the new motion.

Gemini co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss each donated $1 million to Trump’s 2024 election campaign and later met with the president and attended White House events, including the signing ceremony for the stablecoin-related GENIUS Act. A text chain made public in September 2025 by former CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz shows Tyler Winklevoss raising the Gemini litigation as Quintenz was being considered to lead the agency.

Trump later withdrew Quintenz’s nomination, and Michael Selig is confirmed as CFTC chair and currently serves as the agency’s sole commissioner. Cointelegraph says some wording in the motion to vacate, including references to "abuse" of regulatory authority and a "false whistleblower," is similar to language in the Winklevoss text chain, while Gemini does not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Regulated perpetual crypto futures in the U.S. were expanding after the CFTC approved Coinbase and Kalshi to list these products on domestic exchanges, bringing a previously offshore-dominated, higher-risk derivative into an onshore framework. Our earlier coverage also highlighted the regulator’s push for tighter controls, noting Kalshi’s compliance and surveillance buildout as scrutiny increased around suspicious trading and market integrity.

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