A federal judge in Manhattan has rejected a joint request by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, to undo a $5 million settlement reached at the end of the Biden administration. In a ruling issued October 15, 2026, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the agency and Gemini Trust Co had not met the standards required to set aside the settlement, which resolved a lawsuit over statements Gemini made during the agency's review of a proposed bitcoin futures contract.
The CFTC sued Gemini in 2022, alleging the company made false or misleading statements during the agency's review of the proposed futures product. The January 2025 settlement came shortly before a scheduled trial and at the tail end of Democratic President Joe Biden's administration. The Trump administration has since taken a friendlier and narrower approach to crypto sector enforcement, and in May the commodities agency and Gemini jointly asked Hellerstein to wipe out the settlement and court order.
In their filing, the CFTC and Gemini said the agency's 2022 complaint would not have been filed under the new enforcement policy priorities and standards, and that regulators should not have accused Gemini of making false statements in connection with its bitcoin futures business. The filing said the CFTC had resorted to inappropriate tactics to bring the lawsuit. Gemini even agreed not to receive a refund on the $5 million penalty if the settlement were vacated.
Hellerstein was unpersuaded. He noted that Gemini had litigated against the CFTC for more than three years before voluntarily agreeing to settle, and he concluded that the agency's current view of the case does not require vacating the settlement. Courts set a high bar for undoing finalized agreements, and the judge found that bar had not been cleared.
The CFTC and a lawyer for Gemini did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling. The decision is a rare instance of a federal judge blocking the current administration's effort to walk back a crypto enforcement action from the prior administration, and it signals that at least some courts will not simply rubber-stamp reversals of settled cases.
For the Winklevoss twins, who have spent years positioning Gemini as the compliant, regulation-friendly face of the crypto industry, the ruling preserves a black mark they had hoped to erase. The case also underscores a broader tension in Washington: even as enforcement priorities shift with administrations, finalized judgments and settlements carry a legal finality that politics alone cannot easily undo.