US Democrat presents anti-corruption bill ahead of Trump’s gala

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United States Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced on May 22 legislation to ban the president and other lawmakers from engaging in certain digital asset activities, addressing growing concerns amongst Democrats about President Donald Trump’s involvement in digital assets, and in particular his memecoin.

Rep. Waters, along with 14 other Democratic co-sponsors, introduced the “Stop Trading, Retention, and Unfair Market Payoffs in Crypto Act of 2025” (the Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act of 2025) to end “crypto corruption.”

Specifically, the bill calls for a ban on the president, vice president, members of Congress or their families “owning a proportion of a digital asset that would allow them to unilaterally make changes to the digital asset,” and looks to prevent officials from owning, issuing, promoting, or receiving compensation for selling digital assets or trading them while in office.

The bill was announced—uncoincidentally—just hours before President Trump held a gala for the top holders of his $TRUMP memecoin on May 22.

“Trump’s crypto con is not just a scam to target investors,” Rep. Waters said. “It’s also a dangerous backdoor for selling influence over American policies to the highest foreign bidder. For all we know, Russia, China, or even North Korea could be buying Trump’s crypto to secure favors from the White House.”

Trump’s crypto ties and influence

Trump has made boosting the U.S. digital asset space one of his top priorities since taking office for the second time in January.

As well as frequent proclamations in support of the industry—such as declaring that he wanted to “make America the crypto capital of the world”—Trump has moved quickly to reshape the regulatory landscape in the U.S. into a more crypto-favorable shape, including reversing so-called crypto debanking, installing crypto-advocates in key regulatory roles, and signing an executive order to make a strategic bitcoin reserve.

One of the starkest examples of this Trump 2.0-era embracing of digital assets is seen in the changing face of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Under its former chairman, Gary Gensler, the agency was the bane of the more regulation-shy in the digital asset industry, pursuing a strategy of aggressive enforcement actions against those that failed to comply with securities laws—whether they believed they were exempt or not.

Gensler retired from the role in January, just as Trump was being sworn into office, and a crypto-friendly interim Chair was installed in the form of Mark Uyeda. Under Uyeda, and with the support of SEC Commissioner Hester “crypto mom” Peirce, the agency has been dropping lawsuits and investigations faster than it filed them under Gensler’s reign.

Specifically, three days before his January 20 inauguration, the Trump team launched $TRUMP, a meme token on the Solana blockchain, followed by the Trump-backed digital asset firm World Liberty Financial (WLF) launching its own stablecoin in March.

Orchestrating a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment from the office of the president while at the same time profiting from crypto projects launched into this newly favorable space appears to be an apparent conflict of interest—one that has not gone unnoticed by critics and that has begun to hamper legislative efforts.

Democrat critique

On May 6, Rep. Waters walked out of a joint meeting between the House Financial Services and Agriculture committees, focused on cryptocurrency policy, citing concerns over the Trump family’s digital asset businesses.

Waters said she objected to the proceeding “because of the corruption of the president of the United States and his ownership of crypto and his oversight of all the agencies.”

This sentiment was echoed by Democratic colleagues, including Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), who said, “It’s legitimate to call out the self-dealing from the Trump administration related to hawking memecoins from the White House.”

On May 15, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, added his voice to the growing choir of dissent and made it official by announcing a resolution condemning Trump’s pattern of corrupt self-enrichment.

“Trump’s crypto corruption is so massive and brazen, there is little doubt that he will keep selling out the American people until Republicans grow a spine,” said Blumenthal. “Next week, while Trump dines with whoever has funneled the most money into his pocket, I’ll be calling for passage of this resolution as a test to see if Republicans are more than mere lackeys to President Trump’s self-enrichment schemes.”

Now, the House Democrats have also introduced regulation to this effect, in the form of the ‘Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act of 2025,’ which was backed by Reps. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Alexander ‘Al’ Green (D-TX), Stephen Lynch (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), among others.

In support of the bill, Rep. Green said: “President Trump’s second presidency has brought corruption in this country to new heights… Nothing illustrates this more than President Trump’s memecoin. This bill is absolutely vital to ensure that future public servants and their families do not repeat President Trump’s ignominious example.”

Watch: Breaking down solutions to blockchain regulation hurdles