The Senate should regulate crypto — not protect Trump's side hustle | GUEST COMMENTARY

President Donald Trump once said crypto’s value was “based on thin air.” Two years later, he said Bitcoin “seems like a scam.” Then, the thin air started paying him.

Today, Trump is a convert with a family crypto company and a meme coin bearing his name. He is pushing the Senate to pass the CLARITY Act, whose ethics rules somehow leave room for both.

A meme coin is crypto built around a joke or celebrity, not a real product. Buyers bet that hype will push up its price. With $TRUMP, the product is the president. On Sept. 15, the Senate takes up the 600-page bill. Maryland’s senators, Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, have warned about a president using federal power to expand a family crypto empire and backed legislation to keep presidents and their families out of the banking business. They deserve credit for drawing that line.

As a Maryland legislator, I know ethics rules are rarely thrilling. But they should at least enforce one quaint idea: Ptublic office is not a profit center.

The bill says officials may not issue or sponsor crypto for pay while in office. But a coin using the president’s name before inauguration may keep doing so — minting and selling new coins — after he sells or puts in a blind trust whatever holdings the bill calls “direct.” That definition covers coins and certain large equity stakes, not Trump’s licensing agreement, which pays him when his name sells coins. A cynic might suspect Congress wrote the rule by tracing around Trump’s arrangements.