According to a recent filing with the Office of Government Ethics, President Trump has declared over $600 million in income from his Trump meme coin in 2025.
As a result, the Democrats, led by… Long-term Trump critic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has returned to calling for stronger ethics provisions in any cryptocurrency legislation that Republicans intend to bring to the Senate.
Financial disclosure reveals the amount of cryptocurrency profits
Trump’s income from cryptocurrencies exceeds his earnings from meme currencies. According to reports, Trump reached $1.4 billion last year in cryptocurrency-related income, which is more than 50% of his reported income of $2.2 billion as of 2025.
That figure is a total of $635 million in revenue generated by Trump’s memecoin business, $527 million from token sales distributed by World Liberty Financial (a decentralized finance project owned by the Trump family), and about $263 million from stakes in holding companies linked to WLF and its stablecoin arm.
Former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter told NPR that federal conflict of interest laws would prevent other executive branch officials from similar dealings. Painter said Trump “stands alone in facing such a significant financial conflict of interest” as president.
The White House rejected allegations of any financial conflict. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump has made the United States the “cryptocurrency capital of the world,” and the president stated that outside institutions manage his investments without his involvement, according to NPR.
Gillibrand renews push for ethics rules
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), one of the lead negotiators on the CLARITY Act market structure bill, responded to the submission by renewing her call for provisions that would prohibit the president, members of Congress, and their families from… Profit from digital assetsFox Business correspondent Eleanor Terrett It was reported on July 3.
Gillibrand took a hard line on the issue at the Miami Consensus conference in May. “We cannot allow members of Congress, senior administration officials, presidents or vice presidents to get rich from these industries because of their domestic situation,” she said at the event.
It is also a co-sponsor of the End Cryptocurrency Corruption Act (S.1668), introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley with 19 Democratic co-sponsors. This bill would prevent senior officials and their families from issuing, sponsoring, or endorsing cryptocurrencies, memes, tokens, non-fungible tokens, and stablecoins.
The language of ethics remains the biggest obstacle to the draft law
The Senate Banking Committee advanced a substitute amendment to the market structure bill on May 14 by a vote of 15 to 9. Two Democrats, Sens. Ruben Gallego (Arizona) and Angela Alsobrooks (Maryland), voted yes, but cautioned that their support on the floor depended on the inclusion of ethics guardrails.
Albrooks described the Trump family as “the most corrupt we’ve ever seen in a White House,” citing “airplanes, pardons, falsifying business records, and now cryptocurrencies.” “Trump is using the presidency to take advantage of the American people,” Gallego posted on X.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the bill, in its current form, could make matters worse. “Cryptocurrency legislation headed to the Senate floor should prevent the president, vice president, senior administration officials, members of Congress, and their families from profiting from the cryptocurrency industry,” Warren said.
Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has pushed for a full vote in the Senate this month. House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-Arkansas) echoed that urgency, telling reporters that the Senate must “complete its work before the August recess.”
But the two chambers still have to reconcile the Senate’s version with the House’s market structure bill that passed a year ago.
A Senate Republican aide acknowledged the tension between the two chambers. But negotiations on ethics language, anti-money laundering provisions, and oversight of decentralized finance networks are still ongoing, and there is a strong desire to put this legislation on the ground.
Gillibrand faces her own conflict of interest questions
The ethics debate has also affected Gillibrand directly. On July 2, Politico reported that Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple, invested in American Perpetuals Exchange Corp. (APEC), a derivatives startup founded by Gillibrand’s 22-year-old son, Theodore.
Ripple is one of the most active cryptocurrency lobbying forces in Washington and a direct stakeholder in the CLARITY Act that Gillibrand is helping to negotiate. Gillibrand’s office said her son “is an adult and has started his own independent business” and that she has “nothing to do with him at all.”
No wrongdoing has been alleged, but the optics are what they are.
The window to pass the Clarity Act won’t stay open much longer as the August recess approaches. However, finding common ground on ethics language in the coming weeks will likely determine whether comprehensive cryptocurrency regulation is approved by Congress or stalled for another session.
