Members of Congress and Crypto Czar split on whether Trump's memecoin poses a conflict of interest

David Sacks, the first-ever AI and Crypto Czar for the White House, claimed that Trump's memecoin acts as a collectible, much like a baseball card or stamp. 

Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump launched memecoins respectively called TRUMP and MELANIA ahead of the presidential inauguration, which swore in Donald Trump as the 47th United States president. Sacks added that he doesn't see President Donald Trump's freshly launched memecoin posing a conflict of interest — despite members of Congress arguing that it is. 

"I think the Trump coin is a collectible," Sacks said in an interview with Fox Business Thursday. "People buy it because they want to commemorate something. This is just my personal opinion. I'm not a regulator, but my personal opinion is that it's totally fine." 

On Thursday, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Rep. Jacob Auchincloss beg to differ. They claimed that the tokens not only represent a conflict of interest but pose threats of consumer ripoffs and foreign influence, as noted in a letter to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of the Treasury and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 

"As President, Mr. Trump is responsible for nominating the leaders that will enforce our laws against crypto companies," Warren and Auchincloss wrote  to the agencies. "This creates an unavoidable conflict of interest, as he will be in a position to both benefit directly from the sale of the tokens while also setting the policy on how these markets are regulated."

"TRUMP and MELANIA present grave risks to President Trump’s ability to impartially govern our nation — and to investors in these coins, who may be made victims of a rug pull scheme orchestrated by the Trump family," the letter continued. 

TRUMP and MELANIA soar

Despite serving as a potential conflict of interest, the TRUMP and MELANIA coins gained significant retail investment this week. Crypto asset exchanges and apps experienced increased trading activity particularly due to TRUMP, with many traders having never purchased a Solana-based "altcoin" before buying the president's memecoin. Though TRUMP and MELANIA saw notable price dips days after their launches, the TRUMP token alone accumulating $5.9 billion in trading volume in the past day, according to The Block's Price page for the coin. 

On Dec. 5, the Trump administration appointed Sacks to the AI and Crypto Czar role to guide policy and legal frameworks for the United States artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency industries, The Block previously reported. Sacks is the founder and partner of the venture capital firm Craft Ventures in addition to previously helming payments company PayPal as COO and Head of Product. 

Sacks will also oversee the potential creation of the United States digital asset reserve. He noted in his Thursday interview that nothing is set in stone yet. "We're evaluating this national stockpile for digital assets. We haven't created it yet, but we're going to study that issue," he said.