About $1.4 billion. That is the figure tied to President Trump's 2025 income from the $TRUMP token and World Liberty Financial, according to a July financial disclosure, and it is precisely that number that forced Senate Republicans to finally put ethics language into the Clarity Act.
On Wednesday, Republican senators released a revised draft of the bill that, for the first time, includes a section called "Ban on certain digital asset transactions." The provision covers the president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges, and other designated officials, along with their spouses. While serving in their roles, none of them may issue or sponsor a digital asset in exchange for any form of consideration. Any digital asset found to have been issued or sponsored in violation of the ban cannot be listed on any platform.
What the ethics rules actually say
The draft does not leave officials without options. A covered individual can avoid a violation by placing a direct interest in a digital asset into a qualified blind trust, divesting it entirely, or doing both, following procedures that mirror the conflict-of-interest framework under section 208 of title 18. There is also a carve-out: if an issuer or intermediary was already using a covered official's name, image, or likeness before that person entered covered status, continued use of those elements does not trigger the ban.
The ethics package has a hard expiration date. Under the current draft, all of these provisions lose legal force at noon on January 20, 2029, and no one can be penalized after that point for conduct that occurred before the sunset. That date is not accidental. It lines up exactly with the end of the current presidential term.
A compromise that Democrats did not sign off on
Reporter Eleanor Terrett noted the package was negotiated directly between the White House and Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno. Democrats were not part of that agreement. The Banking Committee's Democratic members had spent months pushing for enforceable conflict-of-interest rules, and an amendment to cut officials off from crypto ties was defeated during the May markup of the bill. The new ethics section is essentially a Republican-internal compromise designed to neutralize that criticism without giving Democrats a formal win.
The rest of the Clarity Act's pro-crypto framework remains intact. Industry sources say the broader provisions on digital asset classification and market structure were not touched in this revision. The ethics language was added on top, not in place of anything the crypto industry cared about.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.
