Representative Madison Cawthorn traded $950,000 in cryptocurrencies, which includes Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. However, it was too late to explain it. That’s why it got a lot of criticism this week. But he is not the only person in Congress to trade Bitcoin and altcoins.
Which altcoin projects do members of Congress prefer?
The US Stock Act was passed in 2012. Under this Act, members of Congress, their staff, and employees of the Executive Branch must disclose their transactions. The regulation demands disclosure of transactions in stocks, bonds, commodities and other stocks. The House Ethics Committee added cryptocurrencies to the list in a 2018 memorandum.
However, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been given a 90-day extension for every annual financial disclosure report he has submitted since his election. And Senator Cynthis Lummis (R-WY) announced on August 16, 2021, 52 days after the transaction took place. Lummis said he bought $50,000 and $100,000 worth of Bitcoin. On the other hand, it is difficult to determine exactly who owns what. That’s because the way legislators fill out forms varies.
For example, Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) lists individual stocks, such as Coinbase (COIN), traded through her husband’s Individual Retirement Account (IRA). But many of his colleagues name a retirement or money market account without detailing each stock in it.
Below is a list of members of the US Congress who disclosed altcoin trading since 2020 in reports filed through Friday, June 10. The list shows a clean partisan divide. It seems Republicans are buying real cryptocurrency. In contrast, Democrats stick to crypto-related stocks like Coinbase (COIN) and MicroStrategy (MSTR).
Cryptocurrencies bought and sold by Senator and members
- Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX): Bitcoin (BTC).
- Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA): Grayscale Ethereum Trust (GETH), Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), and GameStop (GME).
- Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY): Bitcoin (BTC).
- Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX): Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).
- Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC): Kryll (KRL), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Bitcoin (BTC), Request (REQ) and Let’s Go Brandon (LGB).
- Representative Kenny Merchant (R-TX): Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).
- Representative Mark Green (R-TN): Ethereum Classic (ETC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Chainlink (LINK), Stellar Lumen (XLM), Basic Attention Token (BAT) and Celo (CELO)
- Representative Felix Moore (R-AL): Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Ethereum (ETH)
- Representative Michael Waltz (R-FL): Bitcoin (BTC)
- Representative Marie Newman (D-IL): Coinbase (COIN), Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).
- Representative Tomasz Malinowski (D-NJ): Microstrategy (MSTR).
- Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-CO): Coinbase (COIN)
- Representative Alan Lowenthal (D-CA): Coinbase (COIN) (980710)
- Representative Jake Auchincloss (D- MA): Flipside Crypto Inc.
- Representative Donald Sternoff Beyer (D-VA): Block, Inc. (SQ)
- Representative Mike Garcia (R-CA): GameStop (GME)
Congress goes META
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Meanwhile, 38 members of Congress listed Meta Platforms (META) transactions worth up to $13.9 million in their financial statements. Of these, 14 have traded since the company rebranded as Meta Platforms in October.
Meta is a popular stock in Congress as it is known. In fact, it is the fifth most traded stock according to financial disclosure reports for the past three years. In front of him are Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Alphabet.
Pending Bitcoin and altcoin regulations
After years of reluctantly accepting the crypto industry, the US government has dramatically increased its willingness to speak, legislate and sue in the Web3 space. On June 7, Sens. Lummis and Kirsten Gilibrand (D-NY) presented a Senate bill that would end the SEC’s oversight over most cryptos. In March, President Joe Biden signed the executive order Ensuring the Responsible Development of Digital Assets, which lays out plans for how the government should approach consumer protection, illegal financing, financial inclusion and ‘responsible development’.
Later, the Ministry of Justice sought international cooperation to chase down criminals using crypto. Treasury Secretary Yellen is one of many regulators seeking investor protection to protect investors from events like the Terra stablecoin collapse. There aren’t many real laws or regulations yet. However, as we have reported as Cryptokoin.com, the US government is paying attention. A day after TerraUSD went down, Yellen said:
A stablecoin known as TerraUSD experienced a breakout and plummeted. I think this shows that this is a rapidly growing product and there are rapidly increasing risks.
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