Scaramucci: Trump memecoin launches torpedoed CLARITY Act passage
SkyBridge Capital's Anthony Scaramucci attributed the collapse of Democratic backing for the CLARITY Act to Trump's memecoin projects and disagreements surrounding ethics provisions.
Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of SkyBridge Capital, has placed responsibility on US President Donald Trump's cryptocurrency business ventures and memecoin projects for causing the CLARITY Act's collapse, asserting these activities led to the loss of Democratic backing for the proposed legislation.
During a conversation with Cointelegraph at the SALT London conference, Scaramucci explained that the memecoin projects launched in the period immediately preceding Trump's inauguration in January 2025 destroyed the bipartisan support that had been building for cryptocurrency regulation in the aftermath of the 2024 election cycle.
When questioned about whether the memecoin ventures represented the exclusive factor behind the bill's failure to pass, Scaramucci responded with a definitive "singular reason." According to him, Democratic lawmakers who had begun showing increased openness toward crypto regulation reversed course and pulled their support after the memecoin launches took place.
These comments come in the wake of the Senate's inability to move forward with the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15, during which a procedural vote garnered 49 affirmative votes against 50 negative votes, coming up short of the necessary 60-vote threshold. The proposed legislation, which aimed to create a comprehensive federal regulatory structure for digital assets, encountered resistance due to conflicts over ethics requirements that would have limited government officials' involvement in cryptocurrency ventures.
Scaramucci says both sides share responsibility
Scaramucci further highlighted the conflicts surrounding the proposed ethics restrictions, noting that members of Congress wanted to implement more stringent requirements that faced opposition from the White House administration.
"I think it's the business interests, the memecoins," Scaramucci explained, going on to say that legislators were "trying to put real teeth into the ethics provision" but faced resistance as the White House did not want to sign off on such measures.
"There's culpability on both sides for that deal not going forward," he stated.
During July, a group of five Democratic senators issued calls for congressional hearings to investigate Trump's cryptocurrency portfolio and possible conflicts of interest, expressing worries that his financial connections to the crypto industry might shape policy decisions. French Hill, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, similarly recognized that Trump's involvement in cryptocurrency businesses had created obstacles in the push to pass regulatory legislation.
During August, Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization, calculated that investors suffered a minimum of $4.7 billion in predominantly unrealized losses across various Trump-related cryptocurrency projects, with $3.2 billion of that total linked to the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin specifically. The organization reported that Trump collected $635 million through memecoin licensing fees during 2025, according to information from his financial disclosure documents.
Notwithstanding the legislative defeat, Scaramucci expressed optimism that the SEC's direction under Chair Paul Atkins might enable tokenization to achieve "escape velocity," meaning sufficient market adoption to make it challenging for any future SEC chair to halt or impede the industry's progress.
He indicated it was premature to determine whether adoption levels would achieve that critical threshold prior to the next presidential administration taking office.