The lawmakers are particularly involved concerning the launch of the TRUMP meme coin and its potential dangers to nationwide safety and moral requirements. Waters criticized the timing of the coin’s launch and warned that it might function a monetary backdoor for dangerous actors, whereas Consultant Gerald Connolly known as for an investigation into Trump’s crypto ventures, together with the World Liberty Monetary platform. In the meantime, hypothesis means that the Trump household might deepen their involvement in crypto.
Maxine Waters Questions Trump’s Crypto
California Consultant Maxine Waters, the rating Democrat on the US Home Monetary Companies Committee, voiced some critical issues about President Donald Trump’s meme coin launch. She urged that it might pose dangers to nationwide safety and open the door to corruption. Throughout a Jan. 22 committee assembly, Waters criticized the Republicans’ oversight plan for the 119th Congress, which she claimed ignored the necessity for scrutiny of cryptocurrency corporations and monetary establishments, together with the actions of the sitting president.
Waters identified the troubling timing of the TRUMP token launch, which occurred simply two days earlier than Trump’s inauguration. She additionally urged that the mission might function a monetary backdoor for sanctioned people, hostile governments, and different dangerous actors to channel cash on to Trump and his associates. Moreover, the Republicans’ plan doesn’t handle potential conflicts of curiosity arising from these sorts of actions.
(Supply: US Home Committee on Monetary Companies)
French Hill, the brand new Republican chair of the committee, outlined his occasion’s plan to give attention to offering authorized readability for digital belongings and increasing monetary literacy. Whereas Hill and his occasion plans on encouraging innovation in decentralized finance, Waters accused the previous president of exploiting his place of energy for private monetary achieve via the meme coin. The truth is, the TRUMP token reportedly boosted Trump’s private wealth fairly a bit, and he has already confronted backlash from crypto fans and Trump supporters criticizing it as a blatant money seize.
Waters additionally not too long ago warned that the meme coin could possibly be a car for a possible “rug pull,” that may depart traders in danger if insiders all of the sudden determined to promote their stakes. Regardless of these warnings, the TRUMP token surged greater than 400% in worth since its launch.
Lawmaker Calls for Probe into Trump’s Crypto Ventures
One other Democratic lawmaker urged the US Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform to research whether or not President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures battle together with his obligations as president. In a letter from Jan. 21, Consultant Gerald Connolly from Virginia raised issues about Trump probably cashing in on his World Liberty Monetary (WLF) platform and the Official Trump (TRUMP) meme coin, and urged that these actions could breach moral requirements and pose nationwide safety dangers.
Connolly’s letter
Connolly singled out WLF as particularly regarding as a result of its largest investor, Tron founder Justin Solar, has been charged with securities fraud by the US Securities and Change Fee (SEC). Solar’s $75 million funding in WLF allowed Trump’s enterprise to surpass its income threshold, probably funneling money on to the president. Connolly warned that monetary entanglements like this elevate critical issues about overseas affect on US coverage.
He known as on the Oversight Committee to deal with these points, and argued that failure to behave shortly will undermine the committee’s credibility and its capability to implement moral requirements. Connolly additionally criticized Trump’s disregard for the Presidential Ethics Reform Act, which mandates monetary disclosures and conflict-of-interest checks.
The controversy surrounding Trump’s crypto ventures intensified after the launch of the TRUMP meme coin. A couple of eyebrows have been additionally raised after Trump was questioned concerning the meme coin throughout a press convention on Jan. 21. Trump proudly admitted to having little or no information concerning the token.
Ethereum Enterprise in Trump Household’s Plans?
Regardless of the issues that have been raised by lawmakers and the crypto business on the whole, the Trump household could now be making ready to deepen its involvement within the crypto sector by launching an Ethereum-based enterprise. Hypothesis grew after Joseph Lubin, Ethereum co-founder and founding father of Consensys, hinted at this chance in a Jan. 21 publish, which urged that the Trump administration might combine Ethereum know-how into authorities actions, just like using web protocols.
Lubin pointed to latest Ether purchases by Trump’s World Liberty Monetary platform as a possible indicator of future plans. Arkham Intelligence knowledge revealed {that a} WLFI-labeled pockets holds about 56,121 ETH, which is valued at greater than $180 million. Ethereum is its largest holding after Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin.
World Liberty Monetary ETH holdings (Supply: Arkham Intelligence)
The Trump administration’s involvement in crypto might additionally convey some a lot wanted regulatory readability to the business that might encourage the convergence of conventional finance and blockchain know-how. Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson and Bitget Analysis chief analyst Ryan Lee each imagine that clearer rules might increase market legitimacy and pave the best way for monetary improvements like crypto-based ETFs and tokenized belongings. Nevertheless, in addition they warned of challenges like elevated compliance prices, safety dangers, and market volatility.
On the similar time, the Trump household’s meme cash are elevating issues about potential authorized and regulatory challenges. Anndy Lian, an intergovernmental blockchain adviser, cautioned that these tokens would possibly blur the traces between movie star, politics, and finance, which might probably immediate the SEC to implement even stricter rules. With out clear pointers, the market might face elevated dangers of manipulation, scams, and volatility, which could undermine the credibility of cryptocurrencies totally.
Coinbase Resolves Backlog Concern
Trump meme cash aren’t simply wreaking havoc on the nerves of lawmakers. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong introduced that the Solana backlog situation, which triggered transaction delays of as much as 21 hours, has been resolved. In a Jan. 22 publish, Armstrong apologized to Coinbase customers for the inconvenience and inspired these with canceled transactions to retry. The congestion was brought on by the frenzy surrounding the launch of Donald Trump’s TRUMP meme coin, as merchants rushed to buy the token.
The TRUMP meme coin launch additionally triggered a surge in visitors on the Solana community on Jan. 20, which overwhelmed purposes however fortunately didn’t trigger a community outage. The occasion had a big impact on Solana, and drove the value of SOL to an all-time excessive on Jan. 19. Solana’s whole worth locked rose to $13.9 billion, in accordance with DefiLlama, whereas community transaction charges spiked to succeed in $17.8 million on Jan. 19 and $11.7 million on Jan. 21. For comparability, day by day transaction charges in December of 2024 ranged between $2.7 million and $5.25 million.
Solana’s worth motion over the previous week (Supply: CoinMarketCap)
Knowledge from CoinMarketCap revealed that Solana’s market capitalization grew to roughly $127 billion in the course of the rally. The meme coin frenzy additionally fueled curiosity in crypto total as Google search volumes for phrases like “purchase Solana,” “purchase crypto,” and “Coinbase” hit peak ranges in the course of the week of Jan. 19. “Purchase Solana” reached a rating of 100 on Google Developments, which is the very best potential search curiosity.