Dem Rep. Waters issues new bill to curb crypto

Democrat representative Maxine Waters along with 14 other Democratic co-sponsors issued a new bill aimed at curbing President Trump’s cryptocurrency investments.

The bill—officially titled the “Stop Trading, Retention, and Unfair Market Payoffs in Crypto Act of 2025,” or the Stop TRUMP Act—was introduced Thursday afternoon, just hours before the president’s memecoin gala at his private golf club.

Rep. Waters and other Democrats introduced the Stop TRUMP Act to prohibit President Trump, the Vice President, members of Congress and their families from issuing, trading, holding or promoting cryptocurrencies.

Waters wants to end “crypto corruption”

Waters has repeatedly framed Trump and his family’s on-chain ventures as “crypto corruption.” In her own words, she’s referring to a pattern where senior officials use digital-asset projects to enrich themselves and curry favor with deep-pocketed backers. 

“Trump’s crypto con is not just a scam to target investors … It’s also a dangerous backdoor for selling influence over American policies to the highest foreign bidder. For all we know, Russia, China, or even North Korea could be buying Trump’s crypto to secure favors from the White House.” 

~ Democrat representative Maxine Waters

President Trump and his family are involved in several cryptocurrency ventures, including World Liberty Financial (WLFI), two memecoins—TRUMP and MELANIA—and the new stablecoin USD1. The memecoins TRUMP and MELANIA were issued before the president’s inauguration and have recorded market caps of roughly $2.87 billion and $214 million, respectively. 

WLFI is a DeFi platform with investments of $550 million raised across two token sales. The project has a total portfolio value of around $343 million across 11 digital assets, per on-chain analysis.

House Democrats have moved to curb Trump’s crypto activities due to corruption concerns. The bill gained support from democratic co-sponsors including Rashida Tlaib, Nydia Velázquez, Stephen Lynch, Brad Sherman, Ritchie Torres, Al Green.