US senator calls for ban on elected officials issuing memecoins
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand proposed banning elected officials and presidents, along with their spouses, from issuing or sponsoring their own digital assets, explicitly responding to Donald and Melania Trump’s memecoins. She called it a commonsense ethics measure and said public officials should not profit from self-dealing in crypto. The proposal comes as Gillibrand helps negotiate the Senate’s Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which has been delayed by ethics, tokenization, and stablecoin concerns. She said the bill will not advance without addressing conflicts tied to lawmakers potentially getting rich from insider access. The restriction would not clearly extend to vice presidents or other family members. Gillibrand had previously said Trump’s Official Trump memecoin was likely illegal under current law, but broader ethics fixes were left out of the GENIUS Act, which became law in July 2025.
