Sen. Chris Murphy is blunt about how he views Trump’s use of his cryptocurrency meme coin: “This is corruption on steroids,” the Connecticut Democrat told us.

Stay with us, because this is complex: Trump launched his meme coin — $Trump — just days before his inauguration and has not been shy about promoting it. The coin thrust the president into an unregulated and volatile world where public figures can launch a cryptocurrency, use their notoriety to draw attention to the coin and benefit when the price surges.

The coin has no intrinsic value and is instead seen as a sign of support for Trump — the people behind it openly say it is “not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type,” and Trump said when the coin launched that it was meant to “celebrate everything we stand for.” But The Washington Post has found that small-time buyers have seen their investments in the coin collapse, while Trump allies and his businesses have benefited from the project in a host of ways.

The coin is now being used to buy direct access to Trump. The group behind the coin — a Trump Organization affiliate and a company run by a Trump friend — has been encouraging purchases of the coin with the promise of an “intimate private dinner” with the president for the top 220 Trump-coin holders. Democrats and government ethics experts have expressed concerns that the meme-coin dinner could be used in a foreign influence scheme. After its promoters offered access to Trump, the coin’s price surged from around $9 to more than $14. Drew Harwell and Jeremy B. Merrill found that nearly two dozen crypto wallets acquired more than 100,000 meme coins, worth roughly $100 million.

“My hair has been on fire about the meme coin from day one,” said Murphy. “That is a level of corruption that is just absolutely stunning. It was already the most corrupt thing a president has ever done in the history of the United States.”

Murphy is also concerned that the coin represents an easy insider-trading opportunity for people close to Trump. The coin price jumps every time the president touts it, meaning, as Murphy said, “all you need is five minutes’ notice that Trump is going to pump up the meme coin on social media and … you can make a mint of money.”

Advertisement

Trump has dismissed questions about whether he is profiting from the coin, telling NBC News this month that he hasn’t “even looked.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told us in a statement that the president is “compliant with all conflict-of-interest rules, and only acts in the best interests of the American public.”

This is certainly not the first time Democrats have accused Trump of corruption. During his first term in office, the president owned a hotel near the White House, and groups looking to lobby or curry favor with Trump would often hold events and block out rooms there. Democrats accused the president of profiting from his position, and various ethics groups sued Trump, citing a clause in the Constitution that bars the president from profiting from foreign governments. Murphy says the potential for corruption with the meme coin is even greater.

“The size of this scandal compared to the Trump hotel is like the Titanic to a dinghy,” he told us.

Republicans have been hard-pressed to comment on Trump’s use of a meme coin. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming), a crypto proponent, canceled an interview we had set with her on this topic. But she told NBC that Trump’s dinner with his meme coin holders gives her “pause.”

Murphy said he has heard “crickets” from Republicans on this issue, even as he and other Democrats negotiate a cryptocurrency regulation bill with their counterparts.

The Lummis-backed crypto regulation is now stalled, with Democrats like Murphy demanding that the legislation bar any president from issuing a crypto coin or using crypto to profit from the position.

There is incredible irony here, too: Some in the crypto industry have been open to regulation, saying it would give validity to the currency. The industry celebrated during the 2024 campaign when Trump rallied around cryptocurrency. But it is Trump’s business interest in cryptocurrency now that is stalling the very regulation that could legitimize the industry.

###