U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA-17) will be proposing a new legislation aimed at banning elected officials from profiting off cryptocurrency, a direct response to President Donald Trump’s pardon of Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao earlier this month.
“Trump pardoned a convicted foreign billionaire who supported the Trump family’s cryptocurrency,” Khanna said in a press release on Oct. 27.
“This is blatant corruption. The Ban Crypto Corruption legislation simply stops elected officials from profiting from crypto and eliminates conflicts of interest. No one should go into public service to make a profit.”
The ‘Ban Crypto Corruption’ Act
According to Khanna, the Ban Crypto Corruption bill would prohibit top U.S. officials and their families including the president, vice president, members of Congress, and high-ranking federal employees, from trading, issuing, sponsoring, or endorsing digital assets.
The proposed legislation would:
* Prohibit the issuance, sponsoring or endorsing of digital assets (including cryptocurrency, meme coins, stablecoins, tokens, NFTs, digital trading cards, and decentralized finance platforms) by the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, candidates for public office, elected public officials, high-ranking executive branch employees and special government employees, and the immediate family members of each of these.
* Require politicians and their immediate family members to place any digital assets they hold in a qualified blind trust inaccessible during their candidacy, public service, and 2 years after an individual’s service.
* Prohibit foreign investment in any digital assets issued, promoted, or controlled by politicians and their immediate family.
* Mandate the full and timely disclosure of all cryptocurrency transactions by politicians and their immediate family.
* Establish civil and criminal penalties for violations.
Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District, which covers much of Silicon Valley — including Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and parts of San Jose, home to major tech companies like Apple, Intel, and Nvidia.
Notably, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a blockchain venture backed by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons, has become one of the important crypto projects in the 2025 crypto cycle. The family reportedly holds roughly 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, valued at an estimated $5 billion, according to Reuters and Wired. The project also issued a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD1.
