Backpack US appoints former SEC Acting Chairman Michael S. Piwowar to board

Backpack US has named former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Acting Chairman Michael S. Piwowar to its board of directors as the crypto exchange expands its U.S. business. Piwowar, now at Georgetown University, served as an SEC commissioner from 2013 to 2018 after being appointed by President Barack Obama, and briefly led the agency during President Donald Trump’s first term in 2017. In a statement, Piwowar said the U.S. digital-asset regulatory environment is moving into a new phase marked by clearer rules, stronger oversight and what he described as growing momentum toward durable market infrastructure. His appointment adds a former top regulator as Backpack broadens from its roots as a Solana-based wallet built by the team behind the Mad Lads NFT collection. Backpack recently unveiled a stock trading platform that will offer traditional and tokenized equities (shares represented on blockchain rails). The company also said it plans to expand perpetual futures, or perps (futures contracts without expiry), in the U.S. after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC (U.S. derivatives regulator), allowed Kalshi to offer what Backpack described as the first regulated bitcoin perpetual futures contract. Backpack already offers regulated perps trading in the EU. Backpack US President Mark Wetjen said the CFTC’s approval of bitcoin perpetuals marked a defining moment because a product long available offshore is now moving toward U.S.-regulated venues, with coordination between the CFTC and the SEC indicating how much policy has evolved. Wetjen previously served as a commissioner and acting chairman of the CFTC. Piwowar’s SEC tenure included a skeptical stance toward the initial coin offering boom even as he and other commissioners said bitcoin should not be treated as a security. During his four-month period as acting chairman in 2017, the SEC rejected the Winklevoss twins’ bitcoin ETF proposal, which had first been filed four years earlier. Before joining the SEC, he served as chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and worked on the SEC-related titles of the Dodd-Frank Act and the JOBS Act, after also serving on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Global Financial Crisis. Backpack has also signaled plans to go public, including a proposed post-IPO treasury backed by 37.5% of its total 1 billion exchange token supply and an equity-linked staking (locking tokens for rewards) model that would reward stakers with 20% of its corporate equity. Launched in 2023, the company last raised capital in a $17 million Series A round in 2024 led by Placeholder VC, with support from Robot Ventures, Wintermute and Selini.