Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, crypto week has been going so well, hasn't it? Mr. Speaker, that is because bailing out billionaires is hard work.
I look at how hard Republicans worked to strip healthcare from 17 million Americans, shutter rural hospitals, and take food assistance from 12 million people just to hand the richest 1 percent of Americans a tax break they don't need. No one should be surprised that the Republicans' next order of business is a billion-dollar handout to the President himself.
In just 6 months, President Trump has enriched himself and his family to the tune of $1.2 billion, and that is just the beginning.
President Trump used to call crypto a scam. In 2021, Trump said: ``Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam . . . I don't like it because it is another currency competing against the dollar.''
Melania was actually the first to get involved in the crypto ecosystem. In January 2022, she announced an auction of her non- fungible token, or NFT, collection. Trump then followed suit in December 2022, launching his own NFT collection, ditching his concerns about crypto because he saw it as a way to pad his pockets.
During the campaign trail, Trump ramped up his crypto involvement. In September 2024, he and his family launched World Liberty Financial, a crypto trading platform. Days before the Inauguration, Trump launched his memecoin which he later used to offer access to the White House to the highest bidder, foreign or domestic.
His family's crypto empire hasn't stopped there. World Liberty Financial launched a stablecoin called USD1. Shortly after that, the Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm, MGX, bought $2 billion worth of Trump's coin to make an investment in Binance. Trump's family has also launched a bitcoin mining operation and multiple crypto exchange-traded funds, or ETFs.
All of this comes at the same time that the Trump administration has taken away the independence of the financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He issued Executive Order 14255 which now requires all rules written by the financial regulators to be reviewed and approved by the White House budget office. This means this bill would hand over to the President the ability to write the rules he wants to advance his crypto operations.
Not only that, under the Trump administration, the SEC has said that memecoins, stablecoins, and bitcoin mining all do not fall under their oversight. Can my colleagues imagine that?
Do these assets sound familiar? Oh, yes, they do because these are all ventures that Trump and his family are pursuing now with no oversight by Wall Street's cop on the beat--that is the SEC.
Surely, each of my colleagues can see how this is a blatant conflict of interest. Democrats do. It is why I introduced the Stop Trump and Crypto Act to ban the President, Vice President, and all the Members of Congress from crypto corruption.
If we do not ban elected officials, including the President or Vice President, from this crypto corruption in H.R. 3633, each of us will be complicit. Yet, even if we included language to stop the crypto con, this bill, which should be called the calamity act, is bad public policy. That is plain and simple.
The bill would lead to increased investor harm, plant the seeds for the next financial crisis, and endanger our national security.
Just last week, the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned that this bill would allow traditional companies, like Apple or Google, to evade securities laws. They could walk away from the disclosure, antifraud, liability, and corporate governance protections that investors have relied on for 90 years. The bill blocks our State regulators from protecting seniors against fraud in crypto.
Additionally, the calamity act does not address illicit finance and other crimes commonly seen in the crypto space. It does not provide nearly enough direction to agencies, which would be required to match the level of financial crimes and noncompliance seen in the industry. It also does not provide sufficient funds for Federal agencies to examine and enforce these laws.
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Ms. WATERS. Velazquez), who is also the ranking member of the Small Business Committee.
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Ms. WATERS. Pressley), an unapologetic leader for justice.
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
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Ms. WATERS. Kamlager-Dove).
Mr. Speaker, let me reiterate: A vote for H.R. 3633 is a vote to give Trump the pen to write the rules that would put more money into his family's pockets. A vote for H.R. 3633 is a vote for increased investor harm. A vote for H.R. 3633 is a vote to plant the seeds for the next financial crisis. A vote for H.R. 3633 is a vote to endanger our national security.
That is why I am voting ``no'' on H.R. 3633, the calamity act, and I urge all Members to not give a vote to Trump to own crypto and not to give a vote to the Vice President. They are the only two elected officials in this bill who can own crypto businesses.
I want to see all of the Cabinet, the President, the Vice President, and all Members of Congress unable to own crypto businesses.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to vote no, no, no, on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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