US Democrat lawmakers have launched a multi-angle attack on President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures with two bills and a subcommittee inquiry aimed at cutting his ability to profit from the initiatives.   

The Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement Act, or the MEME Act, aims to prevent federal officials from using their position to profit from memecoins, Democrat Senator Chris Murphy said in a May 6 statement. 

If passed, the MEME Act prohibits the president, vice president, members of Congress, senior executive branch officials, their spouses and children from issuing, sponsoring, or promoting a security, future, commodity, or digital asset, according to the bill’s description. 

Today I’m introducing a bill – the MEME Act – to ban a President or Member of Congress from issuing a meme coin.

The Trump Coin is the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the White House. @RepLiccardo and I are determined to put an end to this corruption – for good. pic.twitter.com/nQL9ZfIYYV

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 6, 2025

Violators could face civil penalties of up to $250,000 and be required to fork over any profits to the US Treasury. Criminal penalties could also apply, including fines and up to five years behind bars. 

US Representative Sam Liccardo, another Democrat, introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives. However, Trump’s party, the Republicans, controls both chambers, and the legislation will need Republican support. 

Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), said in a May 6 statement that the committee is opening a preliminary inquiry into the Official Trump (TRUMP) token, Trump-backed platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI), and other associated business ventures. 

As part of the inquiry, the PSI sent letters to the company behind the Trump coin, Fight Fight Fight, and WLFI, asking for records and communications between the companies and the Trump organization. 

With his cryptocurrency schemes, Trump is putting a for sale sign in front of the White House. That’s why, as Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I’m launching an inquiry into this brazen corruption whose scope & scale is staggering. pic.twitter.com/3SiaCrthN8

— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) May 6, 2025

At the same time, Blumenthal says the subcommittee is asking for answers about what steps the firms have taken to address possible conflicts of interest.

Main points of interest flagged by the PSI include fees the president is making on the TRUMP token and the nearly 50% spike in value from $9.40 to $13.65 after the TRUMP coin website announced on April 23 that the top 220 holders of the token would be invited to a gala dinner at the White House. 

Soon after launch on Jan. 18, the Trump coin hit its all-time high of $73.43, according to CoinGecko. However, it has since lost 85% of its value and is trading for $11.13. 

More than half of TRUMP holders in profit

Roughly two million wallets have bought TRUMP, with an extra 54,000 adding the token to their stash after the dinner announcement, according to data shared with Cointelegraph from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. 

Around 764,000 of these, most with small holdings, lost money on the coin, while the 58 investors in the token have made profits of over $10 million each, totaling an estimated $1.1 billion. 

At the same time, Chainalysis says the memecoin creator has made $320 million so far, with an extra $1.3 million coming in since the White House dinner announcement. 

Related: Dem lawmakers object to hearing, citing ‘Trump’s crypto corruption’

Meanwhile, a trucking logistics firm announced plans on April 30 to build a TRUMP coin treasury through a $20 million convertible note issuance. 

Javier Selgas, CEO of Freight Technologies, said the tokens are an “excellent way to diversify our crypto treasury and also an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the US.”

The firm also acquired $5.2 million of the Fetch.ai network’s utility token FET on April 1. 

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Members of the crypto community are circulating apparent “proof” that Zerebro developer Jeffy Yu faked his suicide as he promoted his new memecoin during a Pump.fun livestream on May 4.

The belief appears to come from an unverified private letter supposedly sent by Yu to a Zerebro investor, trading activity linked to crypto wallets owned by Yu, and the removal of his obituary from Legacy.com.

Others speculate that Yu used a tool to pass off a pre-edited video as if it were filmed in real-time during the Pump.fun livestream.

Source: Hash

The unverified letter from Yu to an early investor states that he deliberately created a livestream pretending to shoot himself as it was the only “viable exit” from persistent harassment, blackmail, threats and hate crimes.

“Being fully doxxed has placed me under constant fear of robbery and physical harm. There have been numerous notable figures in the crypto community which have undergone armed robberies in their homes recently.”

“With my address publicly known, I have not been able to comfortably reside in any of my family’s homes for months now.”

The letter claimed he would “exit public life and fame” and shift his focus to music, conducted in anonymity.

In addition to the unverified letter, Legacy.com removed Yu’s obituary, which initially described him as a Stanford “tech prodigy” who scaled the AI content-powered Zerebro protocol into an $800 million ecosystem at its peak.

Source: Vee

X user and crypto enthusiast “Vee” also claimed that after Yu’s supposed death, one of his wallets offloaded the Zerebro (ZEREBRO) token for USDC (USDC), which was then moved to the same address that created the Legacoin (LLJEFFY) token.

Vee’s claims were later supported by blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps, which estimated that $100,000 of ZEREBRO was sold and moved to LLJEFFY.

Onchain transfers conducted by wallets confirmed or believed to be in Yu’s control. Source: Bubblemaps

Meanwhile, one viewer of Yu’s livestream believes the gunshots were edited with brightness and sound effects, while another observer claimed that the flash didn’t come from the gun.

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The LLJEFFY token has fallen over 80% to a market cap of $5 million since the incident, DEX Screener data shows.

Yu’s alleged suicide came a few hours after he published a manifesto explaining the concept of Legacoins — or legacy memecoin as he called it — which requires the creator to never sell the coin.

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Digital asset manager Bitwise has filed to list a spot Near exchange-traded fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adding to a growing list of altcoins currently vying to win regulatory approval.

The Bitwise Near (NEAR) ETF will track the price movements of the NEAR token, minus expenses, through a traditional brokerage, Bitwise’s May 6 registration statement shows.

Bitwise named Coinbase Custody as the proposed custodian of the Bitwise NEAR ETF. The management fee, ticker and stock exchange it seeks to list on weren’t named yet. 

Source: Cointelegraph

Bitwise must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator’s approval process for the fund. The crypto native asset manager indicated it would make such a filing when it registered a trust linked to the NEAR ETF in Delaware on April 28.

NEAR joins a pile of spot crypto ETFs on the SEC’s desk

The SEC now has at least a dozen spot crypto ETFs to review in 2025, including applications for Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Hedera (HBAR), Polkadot (DOT), Chainlink (LINK), Avalanche (AVAX), Aptos (APT) and Sui (SUI).

Bitwise already has applications out for a spot DOGE, SOL, and XRP ETFs, and also has an approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETF, which are listed on the NYSE Arca and have attracted a combined $2.35 billion in net inflows since launching last year.

NEAR — the token powering the layer-1 Near blockchain — is the 44th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $2.73 billion, CoinGecko data shows.

The Near blockchain was once touted as an Ethereum killer and is considered by its proponents as a solution to the “blockchain trilemma” — the challenge of achieving all three critical aspects of blockchain performance: security, scalability and decentralization.

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Through Nightshade sharding, Near can process up to 100,000 transactions per second and is secured by 265 active validators, Nearblocks.io data shows.

Source: Justin Bons

The Near ecosystem shifted from decentralized finance to AI infrastructure in 2024, unveiling plans to build the world’s largest open-source large language model.

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