Judge declines to erase Gemini's $5 million CFTC settlement
Regulation & Gov ·
A federal judge turned down a combined request from the CFTC and Gemini to unwind a 2022 enforcement resolution worth $5 million, leaving the settlement intact.
The ruling, reported by The Block, addressed an unusual situation in which the agency that originally brought the case later asked the court to undo it. Earlier in 2026, the CFTC reconsidered its own 2022 action and concluded, under newly revised federal standards for crypto enforcement, that the complaint against Gemini should never have been filed in the first place. Rather than letting the matter rest, the regulator joined Gemini in petitioning the court to void the parts of the consent order that still carried forward obligations.
The judge rejected that joint effort, finding that a settlement reached voluntarily, along with any subsequent shift in agency policy, does not on its own justify reopening or reversing a judgment already entered. In effect, the court treated the original 2022 agreement as binding regardless of the CFTC's later change of heart about whether the case had merit.
The episode sits inside a broader pattern of regulatory attention on Gemini. The exchange has also been named, alongside Coinbase Financial Markets, in a New York lawsuit over alleged state law violations, and the CFTC itself has faced scrutiny for sidelining staff while crypto platforms including Gemini moved into prediction markets. Two distinct sources have corroborated the judge's denial of the joint motion, underscoring that the outcome is not an isolated account.
What remains unresolved is how the CFTC intends to proceed now that its attempt to vacate the settlement has failed, and whether the agency will pursue an appeal or another route to relieve Gemini of the order's remaining terms. It is also unclear what practical obligations still bind Gemini under the unaltered consent order, or whether the broader policy shift behind the agency's reversal will surface again in other pending crypto enforcement matters.