Gillibrand Wants Congress to Stop Minting Memecoins Before Minting Laws 🪙

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the US lawmakers negotiating the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, has proposed barring elected officials and the president from issuing or sponsoring their own digital assets, citing President Donald Trump's and First Lady Melania Trump's memecoins. In a Friday notice, the New York Democrat said Congress should support measures barring elected officials and their spouses from "issuing or sponsoring their own digital assets," a restriction she said would extend to any US president and their spouse, though she did not specifically extend the provision to the office of the vice president or other family members. "This is a commonsense requirement that should get broad bipartisan support – public officials and their spouses should not be issuing memecoins," Gillibrand said. "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."

The proposal comes as the CLARITY Act faces delays over concerns about ethics, tokenization, and stablecoin rewards. Gillibrand, who had expected a Senate vote before the chamber's August state work period, said no one would back the bill without addressing ethics, citing the risk of elected officials "[getting] rich off of these industries because of their insider status." In an interview with Bloomberg at the Solana Accelerate conference in Miami, she said stricter ethics laws should be in place before legislators proceed with crypto laws and expressed hope the Clarity Act can move through the Senate Banking Committee within two weeks. Democrats are demanding action on stablecoin yields, illicit-finance safeguards, and the ethics clause before offering more support, she added.

The proposal also revisits provisions removed during consideration of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) in 2025, when senators stripped measures targeting Trump's ties to the crypto industry, including his Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin. Gillibrand said at the time that the memecoin was likely "illegal based on current law," but noted that addressing all of Trump's ethics concerns would make for a "very long and detailed bill." Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July 2025.

Gillibrand's proposed restriction does not appear to extend to other family members. In addition to his personal crypto investments, Trump has faced criticism over his sons' involvement in the crypto platform World Liberty Financial and their Bitcoin ($BTC) mining company American Bitcoin. This week, Trump reported earning about $1.4 billion from crypto ventures in the same year he took office, a windfall that occurred while he was positioned to influence legislation on digital assets including the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act. According to Trump, there was "nothing illegal" and "nothing wrong" with profiting from his investments as president, while Sen. Democrats separately urged a probe into a $500 million crypto deal between the Trumps and the UAE.