Senator Kirsten Gillibrand wants to block elected officials — including the president — from issuing their own crypto tokens. She announced the proposal Friday, pointing directly at Donald and Melania Trump’s memecoins.
“This is a commonsense requirement that should get broad bipartisan support,” Gillibrand said. “Public officials and their spouses should not be issuing memecoins.”
The restriction would cover members of Congress, the US president, and their spouses. It stops short of extending to the vice president or other family members. That’s a notable gap, given Trump’s sons run World Liberty Financial and a Bitcoin mining operation.
Gillibrand is one of the key senators behind the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, the market structure bill that’s been stalled over ethics concerns. She’s made clear the bill won’t pass without something addressing self-dealing.
This week, Trump reported earning roughly $1.4 billion from crypto ventures in the same year he took office. He’s dismissed conflict-of-interest concerns, saying there’s “nothing illegal” and “nothing wrong” with profiting from his investments.
Gillibrand isn’t buying it. She’s also pushed to ban stock trading by members of Congress and restrict betting on prediction markets. The message is consistent: if you hold office, you don’t get to cash in on it.
Whether this version of the ban actually makes it into law remains to be seen. Earlier attempts to add ethics provisions to crypto legislation got stripped out over complexity. But with Trump’s billion-dollar crypto haul now public, the political calculus may have shifted.
