Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is pressing for a hardline ethics ban on lawmakers and their spouses issuing or promoting crypto memecoins after President Donald Trump’s recent financial disclosure revealed roughly $1.4 billion in crypto-related income for 2025 — a development she says underscores the need for conflict-of-interest rules tied to pending crypto legislation.
“This is a commonsense requirement that should get broad bipartisan support – public officials and their spouses should not be issuing memecoins,” Gillibrand said in a Friday notice. “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.”
Gillibrand, who raised the ethics concern in a Bloomberg interview at Solana Accelerate in Miami, wants stronger ethics rules written into the CLARITY Act before the Senate moves forward. The bill, intended to create clearer rules for digital assets in the United States, is currently being negotiated in the Senate Banking Committee. Gillibrand said she is hopeful the measure can advance in the next two weeks but insisted Democrats want outstanding issues resolved first.
Lawmakers’ talks on the CLARITY Act have centered on stablecoin yields, safeguards against illicit finance, and an ethics clause that would bar government officials from creating or promoting cryptocurrencies. The ethics debate intensified after Trump’s disclosure showed substantial crypto-related income tied to the president, prompting Democratic calls for enforceable limits on elected officials and their families profiting from assets they may influence through policy.
Trump launched the TRUMP memecoin shortly before his second presidential inauguration; the token became one of the most-watched political crypto launches. According to the disclosure, the project generated about $1.4 billion in crypto-related income and produced hundreds of millions of dollars for entities linked to the Trump family, even as many retail buyers later suffered losses after the memecoin plunged from its peak.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing, telling reporters the profits were not illegal, that outside investment groups manage his holdings, and that rising asset prices have helped many investors. Still, critics say the disclosure strengthens the argument for strict ethics language in the CLARITY Act.
The push for an ethics ban adds another political wrinkle to efforts to pass comprehensive crypto market-structure legislation — illustrating how high-profile crypto profits and concerns about conflicts of interest could shape the final contours of U.S. digital-asset rules.
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