Senator Elizabeth Warren, a classification member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, is looking for information from the Bag and Securities Commission about her decision to relax federal regulations around Memes currencies weeks after Trump and the first Lady Melania Trump published her own versions.
The SEC defines a meme coin as a type of cryptographic asset inspired by Internet memes, characters, current events or trends. In a staff statement last month, the agency said that due to its opinion that Memes currencies are generally bought for entertainment and social interaction instead of financial value, the owners of the asset do not have to comply with federal regulations.
“People who participate in the offer and sale of Memes Coins do not need to register their transactions with the Commission under the 1933 Securities Law,” says a February statement of the agency. “Consequently, neither meme coins buyers nor the holders are protected by federal values of values.”
In a letter to the interim president of the SEC Mark Uyeda, Warren highlighted the financial benefits that the Trump incurred through the currencies and wrote the change of rule “conveniently presents a legal interpretation that could protect the president and the coins of the first lady from regulatory scrutiny.”
“According to reports, by January 20, the coins were worth $ 9.5 billion combined and attracted a large number of cryptographic investors for the first time,” added the senator. “Although the $ Trump currency lost approximately two thirds of its value within a few weeks of its launch, President Trump’s companies earned almost $ 100 million in rates; small retail investors, meanwhile, lost money.”
Warren in the letter characterizes meme coins as “direct threats to consumers” that could benefit from one more supervision, no less.
The information that the senator requests from the SEC includes “all communications” between the agency and the White House “, and more specifically, if the agency has taken directives of the president’s work group in digital asset markets, a Board formed by Trump in January that includes the secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and the Attorney General PAM Bondi.
“It is essential that the commission issues policy proposals designed to benefit the American public, not the final result of the president,” says his letter.