The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is moving to vacate a $5 million enforcement settlement reached with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini under the Biden administration, following a lobbying campaign by founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The CFTC filed the motion Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. The agency said it had completed a comprehensive review of the matter and concluded that its enforcement action should never have been brought, calling into question the credibility of a whistleblower account and the strength of the evidence its attorneys had collected, the WSJ reported. The Trump-appointed commission cited the administration’s policy of pivoting away from the Biden administration’s approach to the cryptocurrency industry, according to the outlet.

The original settlement, reached in January 2025, accused Gemini of making false statements to the CFTC in connection with the planned launch of a bitcoin futures contract on an exchange operated by Cboe Global Markets, the newspaper said. At the time of the recommendation, CFTC staff said it had identified “at least 25 false or misleading statements” in written communications to the commission.

The CFTC now contends that Gemini and the Winklevoss brothers were themselves victims of a fraud scheme by the company’s former chief operating officer, who allegedly concealed having authorized favorable fee structures for two unnamed large institutional clients without obtaining compliance-officer approval, according to the report.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office had separately investigated Gemini at the time and closed its probe partly because of concerns over the whistleblower’s credibility, according to documents cited by the WSJ. One document also showed a senior CFTC attorney had disclosed a friendship with a Gemini executive and said she believed the company was being treated unfairly.

The Winklevoss twins reluctantly agreed to the original settlement but launched a heated lobbying campaign after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, arguing they were victims of “7 years of lawfare trophy hunting,” the WSJ said. The brothers approached Brian Quintenz, whom Trump had initially nominated to lead the CFTC, and after disliking his response asked Trump to pause his nomination.

Trump pulled the nomination, and the White House later selected Michael Selig, a longtime crypto and derivatives lawyer previously at the Securities and Exchange Commission.