Senator Gillibrand Seeks to Ban Trump, Elected Officials From Launching Meme Coins

By Andrew Hayward

Following this week's disclosure that President Donald Trump earned more than $1.2 billion from his crypto endeavors last year, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is once more calling for a ban on the issuance and promotion of digital assets for politicians and their spouses. 

The ban would extend to meme coins, which Trump and his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, both benefitted from during the last year, with the president reportedly earning more than $635 million from his Solana-based meme coin alone. 

“This is a commonsense requirement that should get broad bipartisan support—public officials and their spouses should not be issuing meme coins,” said Gillibrand in a statement. 

“We cannot let self-dealing destroy an opportunity to strengthen consumer protections, crack down on illicit finance, and expand economic opportunity for the millions of Americans our financial system has left behind,” she added.

Gillibrand, who is among the most pro-crypto Democratic senators, has been leading an ethical charge as it relates to actions of congressional workers. Earlier this year, she led a bipartisan effort to keep members of congress from placing wagers on prediction markets amid growing scrutiny of potential insider trading, including allegations that those near the White House may be unfairly profiting from inside information. 

She also has been vocal about the banning of stock trading for public officials while they are in office.

“The time to act is now—and that must include ethics reforms that prohibit members of Congress, the president, and their spouses from cashing in on their office,” she said.

Ethical provisions have also been a point of contention as it relates to advancing a key piece of crypto legislation, the Clarity Act market structure bill. In May, the senator said that the bill would not pass without an ethics provision that extended to the actions of President Trump.

But when the bill advanced through a key senate vote, an agreement regarding ethical guardrails for public officials had not yet been completed. Nevertheless, odds of the bill’s passing this year have slipped to around 50-50 according to Galaxy researchers, who pointed to a lack of time, not content, for getting it done.

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