Proposed revised ethics language (plain-English summary of the key changes)
Covered people
• President, Vice President, members of Congress, federal judges, senior executive-branch officials (Senate-confirmed and certain Schedule C / non-career SES), and their spouses.
• Adult children and entities they control are also covered if the official has a significant financial interest or licensing arrangement.
Core ban (stronger and clearer)
During the period of service (plus a short cooling-off period after leaving office):
• No issuing, sponsoring, promoting for compensation, or receiving royalties/licensing fees tied to any digital asset.
• No new arrangements that use the official’s name, image, likeness, or brand to sell or promote digital assets.
• Existing licensing or royalty deals must be terminated, restructured into a true blind trust, or the economic interest fully divested within a firm deadline (e.g., 180 days). Continued minting/sales under the official’s name after the deadline is prohibited.
Pre-existing holdings
• Significant direct or indirect economic interests in digital assets or related businesses must be placed in a qualified blind trust (with an independent trustee who has no communication with the official) or fully divested.
• Simple personal holdings of widely traded assets (Bitcoin, Ethereum, major indices, etc.) below a high threshold can remain as passive investments, subject to ordinary disclosure and existing conflict rules. Large concentrated positions or family-business interests do not get this carve-out.
Enforcement
• Primary enforcement by the Department of Justice and the Office of Government Ethics.
• State attorneys general may bring civil actions in parallel (mirroring many other federal ethics and consumer-protection statutes).
• Clear civil penalties: full disgorgement of profits + meaningful monetary fines. Knowing/willful violations can carry additional consequences under existing criminal ethics statutes.
No convenient sunset
• The rules remain in effect permanently (or at least for a long fixed period that outlasts any single administration). Removing the January 20, 2029 hard stop eliminates the appearance that the rules were written to expire the moment one particular official leaves office.
Other clarifications
• Officials may still speak and vote on digital-asset policy as part of their duties.
• The rules do not ban ordinary personal investment or free speech about crypto in general.
• They target economic self-dealing and brand monetization while in office.
Why this version
• It closes the main loopholes critics have highlighted (continued royalties via intermediaries, name/image licensing that keeps generating new revenue, weak or self-controlled enforcement, and a sunset timed to one presidency).
• It still allows genuine passive investment and does not require every official to sell every token they own.
• It is written to apply to whoever holds the offices in the future, not just the current occupant.
• It removes the ethics fight as a permanent obstacle so the actual market-structure rules (SEC/CFTC clarity, customer protections, illicit-finance measures, etc.) can finally move forward.
This is not a complete 600-page bill rewrite—just the section that is currently the political bottleneck. A real legislative draft would need precise statutory language, definitions, and coordination with existing ethics statutes (18 U.S.C. § 208, etc.). But the principles above would make the ethics package substantially stronger and more credible while still being workable.