Donald Trump said he would announce a 'a major trade deal' with 'a big, and highly respected, country' later in the day
Donald Trump is once again being questioned over his crypto ventures. AFP

KEY POINTS

  • The House ranking members said Trump's crypto ventures raised concerns about potential bribery and market manipulation among others
  • They also mentioned how TRON Founder Justin Sun supposedly 'saved' WLFI by purchasing $WLFI tokens in the millions
  • They said there are concerns of potential 'insider trading' involved around the $TRUMP meme coin

Top House Democratic members on Wednesday urged Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to provide all available reports on alleged "suspicious activity" related to U.S. President Donald Trump's cryptocurrency ventures.

Rep. Gerald Connolly, a ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform, Rep. Joe Morelle, a ranking member of the House Committee on House Administration, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, a ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, demanded that Bessent submit all suspicious activity reports (SARs) on World Liberty Financial (WLFI) and the Official Trump (TRUMP) meme coin.

House Dems Raise Issue Over Potential Bribery, Fraud

In their letter, the Democratic lawmakers said Trump's involvement in crypto has raised "myriad concerns about potential bribery, influence-peddling, threats to national security, market manipulation, and/or predatory and deceptive practices targeting vulnerable Americans."

According to the lawmakers, the Trump administration has adopted "a strident agenda of promoting crypto" and also moved to eliminate major regulatory guardrails in the crypto industry.

Notably, TRON blockchain Founder Justin Sun was mentioned in the letter. The Democratic leaders said Sun "saved" WLFI after the DeFi project fell "dramatically short" of its initial fundraising goal by purchasing $45 million worth of the WLFI token.

As for the TRUMP meme coin and First Lady Melania Trump's MELANIA token, the policymakers said there is much potential bad actors, "including authoritarian governments and companies they control," may have bought into the coins.

"Moreover, the $TRUMP coin offering has also raised fears that the tokens may jeopardize national security because 'they allow foreign agents to buy large amounts of the token as leverage over Trump's policy decisions.'"

There was also the issue on whether the team behind the TRUMP meme coin may have "enabled insider trading" and may have also engaged in a "pump and dump" token scheme.

This is not the first time Trump's crypto projects have been questioned over potential conflicts of interest. There have also been concerns among crypto holders that they may have been "scammed by the first family" when they bought into the TRUMP and MELANIA coins.

$TRUMP Meme Coin at $2B Market Cap

Despite the ongoing scrutiny around Trump's crypto ventures, his TRUMP meme token remains one of the most valuable meme coins, as per CoinGecko data.

As the world's fourth-largest meme token by market cap ($2.6 billion as of late Wednesday), the TRUMP coin is trading at around $13. The token's current price is far from its all-time high of above $44 in the early days of its launch.

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