Trump Agrees to Sweeping Ethics Provisions in Crypto Bill Ahead of Senate Vote

President Trump has agreed to accept most of a sweeping ethics framework embedded in a cryptocurrency regulation bill that will face a critical Senate vote this week. The concession came after weeks of private negotiation with a bipartisan group of senators who had made clear they would not advance the legislation without stronger safeguards against conflicts of interest—particularly regarding the president's own substantial holdings in digital assets.

The original bill contained a straightforward prohibition: federally elected officials and their spouses, along with federal judges, would be barred from issuing cryptocurrencies. But that language did not satisfy a coalition of Democrats and Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a Republican. They argued the restriction was too narrow and did not adequately address the core problem: the potential for officials with crypto wealth to shape policy in ways that benefited their own financial interests. Without their votes, the bill would stall. The key Senate vote is scheduled for Tuesday.

Tillis and Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a Democrat, led the push for more aggressive enforcement mechanisms. They wanted state attorneys general—not just the Justice Department—to have the power to enforce the law. This was the sticking point. White House officials had resisted the idea privately, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Their concern was straightforward: Democratic state attorneys general in blue states could weaponize the law against Trump and other Republican officials, just as Republican attorneys general in red states might use it against Democrats. The political risk cut both ways, but the administration saw it as a threat.

In the end, Trump agreed to roughly eighty percent of what Tillis and Gallego had demanded, according to a senior Republican official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. The updated version of the bill, to be released Sunday, will require any federal official with a significant financial interest in a cryptocurrency-issuing entity to either sell that stake or place it in a blind trust—a structure that removes the official from knowledge of or control over the holdings. Trump also accepted language allowing state attorneys general to sue cryptocurrency exchanges if those exchanges list a digital asset that the bill would otherwise prohibit.

What Trump did not fully accept was the broadest version of state enforcement power. The compromise grants state attorneys general the ability to sue exchanges specifically, a narrower grant of authority than a blanket enforcement right. It is a distinction that matters in practice: it gives states a tool but not a blank check.

The White House did not respond to requests for immediate comment on the agreement. The concession signals that the administration believes the bill, with these ethics provisions in place, is worth passing—and that the political cost of blocking it would be higher than accepting constraints on officials' crypto holdings. The Senate vote Tuesday will test whether the compromise holds enough support to move forward.