CLARITY Act's Ethics Side Quest: Make Trump Sell Crypto, Then Tax-Less 📉

A bipartisan ethics proposal tied to the CLARITY Act could require U.S. President Donald Trump to divest from his crypto-related businesses and, in the process, defer capital gains taxes on those holdings, according to Bloomberg. The draft ethics addendum, which has not been made public, was negotiated between the White House and U.S. senators as part of efforts to advance the broader crypto market structure bill, people familiar with the matter said. The deferral mechanism could yield millions of dollars in tax savings for the president, the report added.

The Senate had delayed a vote on the CLARITY Act, pushing it to September, as Democrats sought stricter ethics provisions to prevent conflicts of interest between public officeholders and crypto businesses. Cointelegraph reported that the proposed addendum addresses those concerns by mandating divestiture, but the reported tax-deferral benefit could become a fresh point of contention, with Democrats questioning whether the president's financial interests are genuinely curbed. Cointelegraph reached out to the White House for comment and did not receive an immediate response.

Trump's annual financial disclosure report for 2025, released at the end of June, showed the president earned $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures last year. The 927-page disclosure attributes the largest share to licensing and sale of memecoins, including Official Trump (TRUMP), which generated about $635 million in royalties from a license agreement with Celebration Coins. The Trump family's DeFi platform World Liberty Financial was the second-largest contributor at about $588 million in proceeds from token sales, while Trump also reported $197 from the sale of an equity interest in a stablecoin venture.

Disclosures on World Liberty's website show that DT Marks DEFI LLC, an entity affiliated with Trump and certain family members, owns approximately 38% of the equity interests in World Liberty's parent company. The CLARITY Act itself is intended to clarify how digital assets are regulated across U.S. federal agencies, and the ethics addendum is being negotiated alongside the market structure language as lawmakers attempt to finalize the package. The hashrate and other crypto market indicators were not addressed in the reported proposals.