WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats introduced a bill Thursday that would limit what crypto activities the president, vice president, members of Congress or their families may engage in, a move prompted by President Donald Trump's stake in the World Liberty Financial crypto venture.
House Financial Services Committee ranking member Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said the bill, known as the Stop Trading, Retention and Unfair Market Payoffs in Crypto Act of 2025 — or the Stop TRUMP Act — is meant to end what she described as an effort by the president to profit from his elected office. The bill's introduction comes ahead of a scheduled dinner Thursday night at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the largest holders of his $TRUMP meme coin.
A meme coin is a cryptocurrency inspired by a meme that is often volatile and of low value. When the Trump coin was introduced in January, it was valued at about $28.72. It most recently traded around $15.70, a 45% drop over four months, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
The bill would prevent the president, vice president or a member of Congress from owning "a proportion of a digital asset that would allow the individual to unilaterally make changes to the digital asset; serve as an officer, director, or owner of a digital asset issuer; issue, sponsor, promote, or receive any direct or indirect compensation, including fees, for the sale, marketing, or mining of any digital asset in the United States or to a United States person; or trade digital assets while in office, if the covered individual has material non-public information about digital assets."
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The bill is cosponsored by several Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee, comprising Reps. Waters, Brad Sherman and Juan Vargas of California; Sean Casten and Bill Foster of Illinois; Cleo Fields of Louisiana; Stephen Lynch of Massachusettts; Rashida Tlaib of Michigan; Emmanuel Cleaver of Missouri; Gregory Meeks, Ritchie Torres and Nydia Velázquez of New York; Joyce Beatty of Ohio; and Sylvia Garcia and Al Green of Texas.
The bill has little hope of being taken up in the 119th Congress, where Republicans hold majorities in both houses. Democrats have been critical of Trump's crypto enterprises, which were launched last October just ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
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Senate Democrats, including Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have scheduled a press conference for Thursday afternoon to protest Trump's planned Mar-a-Lago dinner.
