U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) formally challenged the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recent position on meme coins in a letter sent Friday to Acting SEC Chair Mark T. Uyeda. The lawmakers scrutinized the Division of Corporate Finance’s Feb. 27 Staff Statement, which declared that meme coin transactions fall outside the scope of federal securities law.
They questioned the timing of the announcement, stating: “The Staff Statement comes just weeks after President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump launched their own meme coins, TRUMP and MELANIA, and conveniently presents a legal interpretation that could shield the President’s and First Lady’s coins from regulatory scrutiny.”
Warren and Auchincloss emphasized the need for regulatory measures aimed at protecting consumers, not serving the financial interests of political figures. The legislators highlighted widespread consumer harm within meme coin markets, asserting:
Market manipulation tactics are prevalent among meme coins. ‘Pump-and-dump’ schemes, for instance, account for 40% of meme coin sales: specifically, sellers artificially inflate coins’ prices only to sell their holdings at the peak, plummeting the coin’s value for all other buyers.
“Another 30% of meme coin sales are ‘rug-pull’ scams, a scheme in which a coin’s developers abandon the token after taking all users’ investment funds. Consumers lost $500 million to this type of scheme in 2024,” the lawmakers added.
They also criticized the SEC for rolling back enforcement: “The Staff Statement is, notably, just one of many recent SEC actions aiming to arbitrarily deregulate the cryptocurrency industry. In just the past two months, for example, the SEC has dropped ten major lawsuits and investigations against cryptocurrency platforms such as Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken.”
The lawmakers emphasized:
It is essential that the SEC operate in the best interests of everyday investors, not wealthy individuals–including the President–who seek to profit at their expense.
Warren and Auchincloss demanded detailed explanations from the SEC, including all communications between the agency and the White House or the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets regarding the Staff Statement. They asked whether the SEC had received any directives from that group. They requested clarity on why the Division issued a Staff Statement instead of a formal rule or guidance, and whether the TRUMP and MELANIA coins qualify under the memo’s definition of meme coins. Additionally, they called for the agency to define what separates meme coins from other cryptocurrencies and to list which tokens were evaluated during the drafting process. The lawmakers pressed for a response by March 28.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
