Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the more outspoken voices in Congress often connecting cryptocurrencies to illicit activities, slammed the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s settlement with Tron founder Justin Sun.
In a Thursday notice, Warren accused the SEC of “giving a free pass” to Sun after he “poured $90 million” in crypto investments tied to US President Donald Trump and his family.
Sun has invested millions of dollars through token purchases in the Trump family’s crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, and the SEC settled an unrelated case against the Tron founder and his companies for $10 million.
“Justin Sun poured $90 million into Trump’s crypto ventures, and today the SEC agreed to drop its case against him,” said Warren. “The SEC should not be a lap dog for Trump’s billionaire buddies, and any crypto legislation moving through Congress must stop the President’s crypto corruption.”
Warren did not specifically refer to the digital asset market structure bill moving through the Senate, but the legislation has been a focus of the White House and many pro-crypto lawmakers for months after it passed the House of Representatives as the CLARITY Act. The bill, which advanced from the Senate Agriculture Committee in January, is being considered by the Senate Banking Committee, where Warren is the ranking Democrat.
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Crypto observers await markup for market structure bill
Among the issues at stake in the market structure bill include provisions on tokenized equities, ethics and stablecoin rewards. The White House has hosted three meetings between officials and representatives of the crypto and banking industries, but it was unclear as of Friday whether the discussions had made any impact on the legislation.
Both Trump and his son, Eric, posted to social media this week to criticize banks over their position on the market structure bill. Some banking organizations have argued that including provisions on stablecoin rewards in the legislation could undermine credit and lead to deposit flight risk.
In January, the Senate Banking Committee indefinitely postponed a markup on the market structure bill after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange could not support the legislation “as written.” As of Friday, the body had not rescheduled the event, which would be necessary to address securities law concerns before a potential vote in the full Senate.
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