'Startling': Dems rally to block bill to make it easier for Trumps to 'line their pockets'
Even Democrats who once supported regulatory legislation for "stablecoins" are backing off now that the Trump family is a major player in the crypto market, according to a new report in The New York Times.
Stablecoins are "a type of cryptocurrency that maintains a price of $1"; Crypto traders like stablecoins because they don't "swing in value the way other digital currencies do, making them convenient for many types of business transactions," according to the report.
A bill backed by the crypto industry called the GENIUS Act would be "one of the first formal acts by lawmakers to create a regulatory system that could help the industry grow in the United States."
But in closed-door meetings, Senate Democrats "expressed concern that the legislation would directly benefit" the Trump family’s burgeoning crypto business, wrote reporters David Yaffe-Bellany and Eric Lipton.
ALSO READ: ‘Pain. Grief. Anger’: Families heartbroken as Trump backlash smashes adoption dreams
Although he was a "onetime crypto skeptic, Donald Trump has embraced digital currencies" and has promised "to turn the United States into the 'crypto capital of the planet.' In September, he and his sons announced they were starting World Liberty, a business that would offer its own digital currencies."
World Liberty Financial recently secured a deal with an Emirati venture fund backed by the government of Abu Dhabi to take $2 billion in deposits. The business venture would effectively funnel money "into a business led by the U.S. president’s family."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said in a statement that the legislation "will make it easier for the president and his family to line their own pockets. This is corruption and no senator should support it.”
Senators were also concerned about the potential for fraud and money laundering.
The Times reported that Senate Republicans need at least seven Democrats on board to move the legislation.
On Monday, both Sen. Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) separately moved to ask the Office of Government Ethics "to investigate the Trump family’s growing cryptocurrency business deals, calling them 'a startling degree of foreign influence and the potential for a quid pro quo that could endanger national security," the report said.