Two of the Senate's sharpest crypto critics are turning up the pressure on the White House again. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal sent a letter Monday to SEC Chair Paul Atkins, asking the agency to look into whether Trump's $TRUMP memecoin amounts to an illegal scam.
The token launched on Solana days before the January 2025 inauguration and briefly touched a market cap near $9 billion, with the price topping $46. It now trades around $1.47, with a market cap under $400 million — meaning anyone who bought near the peak has lost almost everything.
Citing data from Nansen, the senators say close to a million buyers have lost roughly $3.8 billion since launch, while the president himself is estimated to have pocketed about $636 million. That gap, they wrote, "raises questions about how the president made his cryptocurrency fortune, including through potentially fraudulent enrichment schemes." Their letter adds that the SEC "must be willing to enforce the law even when potential wrongdoers include those with powerful political connections."
Whether the agency can actually act is another matter. Back in February 2025, the SEC ruled that memecoins aren't securities — a decision that shields $TRUMP and thousands of similar tokens from the kind of oversight that would normally follow. So this letter may end up being more political theater than a real threat.
The timing matters. The Clarity Act, the bill meant to set clear rules for the whole crypto market, is stuck over an ethics clause that would bar senior officials from directly holding stakes in crypto projects — a clause written with exactly this situation in mind. Senate Majority Leader John Thune had planned a vote this week, but without Democratic votes, it's unlikely to pass.
