Senate is to vote on cryptocurrency regulation as Democrats push back on Trump investments
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is set to vote Tuesday on whether to move forward with legislation to create a new regulatory framework for cryptocurrency, a pivotal election-year test for the $2.3 trillion market as many Democrats say it doesn’t go far enough to rein in President Donald Trump's investments.
The vote, just two months before the midterm elections, comes as the crypto industry has become a major political force and as Trump has amassed significant crypto wealth while in office. While some Democrats support the idea of a regulatory framework, a top priority for the industry, the party has been mostly united in opposition to the legislation unless it includes strong ethics safeguards to prevent the president and his family from enriching themselves while in office.
“Let’s make sure that we do not pass a crypto bill that will let Donald Trump continue to rake in billions of dollars in crypto profits while working families across this country struggle to deal with higher prices and an economy that gets worse by the day,” said Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, in a Senate floor speech on Monday.
As Democrats have vowed to block the bill, Trump has agreed to some concessions on ethics, including new restrictions on federal elected officials from issuing digital assets like the presidential meme coins he and his wife Melania launched before he took office for his second term. On Sunday, Trump agreed to additional concessions, such as additional powers for state attorneys general that Democrats had sought to enforce the crypto measure.
But those concessions do not appear to be enough for most Democrats. A proposal by Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina had sought to require Trump to put his crypto holdings in a blind trust and divest when those holdings reach a certain value.
The latest version of the bill “leaves a lot to be desired,” Gallego said Monday evening. “If they think this is a final deal, this is not their call.”
Gallego said he would offer a counterproposal, but it was unclear if the two sides would be able to agree before the vote Tuesday afternoon. Republicans need Democratic support to win the 60 votes necessary to move forward on the bill in the 53-47 Senate.
Trump has amassed big crypto profits
Trump’s family has raked in big profits in the crypto sector since he was reelected, including the meme coin, announced the day before Trump took office. Top investors were invited to a private reception with the president.
Trump’s family also has a controlling stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm co-founded with the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. Trump reported more than $500 million in revenue from World Liberty Financial sales of crypto products, including “governance tokens,” in his annual disclosure report filed with the Office of Government Ethics. That is a significant share of the more than $1.4 billion that the president reported from crypto businesses last year.
A measure enacted into law last year regulating stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency, barred members of Congress and their families from profiting off them, but it did not extend to Trump or his family.
Legislation aims to give crypto firms legal certainty
Republicans who have been working on the legislation for a year say it could stall indefinitely if the Senate doesn’t vote to move forward on Tuesday. The House and Senate will be out of session during October and before the elections, and the dynamics could significantly shift if Democrats win back the majorities of the House or Senate, or both, in November.
Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, a lead sponsor of the bill, said that a no vote means ”opposing real ethics reforms on politicians’ personal investments, handing American leadership in digital assets to our foreign competitors, and leaving Americans with zero protections in the digital asset markets.”
Supporters say the legislation aims to give the industry more legal certainty and protect consumers by creating a broad set of guardrails and regulatory requirements, including better enforcement to prevent bad actors and protections to prevent a market collapse.
Opponents, mostly Democrats, say it is a giveaway to the industry, which strongly backs the bill and has become a major donor to candidates in both parties around the country. In 2024, the crypto industry spent more than $130 million in congressional races, including $40 million in Ohio and $10 million each in Arizona and Michigan.
“DC received a clear message that being anti-crypto is a good way to end your career, as it doesn’t represent the will of the voters,” Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, the nation’s largest crypto exchange, wrote in a social media post the day after the 2024 election.
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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.