May 15, 2026 - Issue: Vol. 172, No. 83 — Daily Edition119th Congress (2025 - 2026) - 2nd Session

AND STILL I RISE: THE DANGERS OF UNREGULATED CRYPTOCURRENCY; Congressional Record Vol. 172, No. 83
(House - May 15, 2026)

Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.

[Pages H3547-H3549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      AND STILL I RISE: THE DANGERS OF UNREGULATED CRYPTOCURRENCY

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Green 
of Texas was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.)
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.
  And still I rise, unbought, unbossed, unafraid: a liberated Democrat.
  I rise as an unbought, liberated, and unafraid Democrat. I am 
unbought by crypto cash, unbought by the millions of dollars that the 
crypto industry spends to elect people to Congress so that they can 
have influence over legislation, and unbossed by the

[[Page H3548]]

cryptocrats, the people who are among the greediest when it comes to 
controlling money and who desire to not only avoid taxes but to evade 
taxes.
  I am unbossed, unbought, and unafraid; unafraid to speak truth to the 
powerful crypto industry and unafraid to speak truth about the powerful 
crypto industry.
  Mr. Speaker, you can speak truth to power by simply saying: Power, 
there is a problem. Let's solve it.
  I speak truth about power because I say to power: There is a problem, 
and you are it.
  Today, as a censored but not silenced--censored but not silenced--
Member of Congress, I will today speak truth not only to power but also 
speak truth about power. As I do so, and I will use my pointer as I 
customarily do, my cane. By the way, this cane is not to help me 
ambulate. I am quite ambulatory. This cane is a rod and a staff that 
comforts me in the presence of my enemies when I don't have the 
protection that Congress is providing us, and I don't always have it.

  Today, as I speak truth unbought, unbossed, unafraid, and censored 
but not silenced, I want to call several things to your attention, Mr. 
Speaker, under the topic of the dangers of unregulated cryptocurrency. 
There are dangers associated with cryptocurrency when it is not 
properly regulated.
  Let's start with the memecoins.
  Mr. Speaker, if you own a memecoin, you own nothing. You have bought 
nothing. You have paid for nothing, and at some point, some of the 
owners of memecoins will get exactly what they paid for: nothing.
  A memecoin is a fiction that requires the person who buys initially 
at some point to hope that there is another person who will buy at a 
higher price and that the money between the price paid for and the 
price you can sell for, the higher price, becomes your profit.
  In the parlance of those who do much of this at a street level, that 
is called the greater fool theory: buying in and believing that there 
is a greater fool who will come along and cover your possible losses.
  If you own a memecoin, Mr. Speaker, you own nothing.
  The President is one of the great purveyors of memecoins. The 
President has a coin, the $TRUMP Coin, and this coin he can pump up, 
and he can dump and leave those who are part of the higher price 
holding the bag.
  The President pumps and dumps. This is a scam.
  I am speaking truth about power, not just to power.
  Yes, Mr. President, you are the problem. You have taken advantage of 
many people with your scam wherein you can make comments and tell 
people to come down to Mar-a-Lago, come on down, and those who have the 
greatest investment, you will be allowed. Those who are buying in at a 
cheaper level won't be allowed.
  Therefore, people can go out and buy so that they can be among those 
who will come to Mar-a-Lago and as a result, he pumps up the value of 
his memecoin, which is nothing. He pumps up the value of nothing, and 
then at some point he can sell at this higher price and make an amount 
of money.

                              {time}  1130

  This is really insider trading that is transparent. I don't think the 
President ought to be able to own memecoins. I don't think the Cabinet 
should own memecoins. I don't think Members of Congress should own 
memecoins.
  I think that Members of Congress, the President, and the Cabinet have 
advantages that other people don't have. We talk to each other. The 
President can tell people when to buy and when to sell because he is 
going to pump and then dump or allow you to dump.
  I believe the law ought to regulate such that memecoins cannot be 
owned and sold by Members of Congress, members of the Cabinet, the 
President, and possibly some others that I shall not name at this 
point.
  I believe that we have to properly regulate the memecoin. That is why 
the cryptocrats want to get me out of Congress because they know I 
fight them. I stand in the way of what they attempt to do to people who 
are not knowledgeable about how this can be pumped and dumped and how 
people can be taken advantage of.
  I am in the way, yes. Come and get me. I understand it. Come and get 
me. As long as I am here, I am going to stay in the way. I want to 
protect the American people from this kind of insider trading, this 
kind of selling of nothing, and being taken advantage of by those who 
happen to buy nothing and assume that they can sell it for something.
  Mr. Speaker, let me say plainly what the cryptocrats are. The
cryptocrats are little dogs who fight over the smallest scraps. They
snarl at one another over a thrown bone, they bare their teeth over a
crumb, and they call it an empire. They are not lions. They are not
wolves. They are little dogs, yapping at the heels of the American
people, fighting amongst themselves for the smallest scraps, and
mistaking the noise of their own quarreling for the roar of industry.
A pack of little dogs fighting over scraps does not make a kingdom; it
makes a kennel.
  Yes, the memecoin is a problem. Those who sell it and create it are a
part of the problem when it is not properly regulated.
  For example, Mr. Speaker, take Mr. Elon Musk. Mr. Musk has used his
platform--the largest megaphone in private hands--to promote a coin
called Dugecoin
F8agCDRpwKXBmGEK3zrMarsXr15BH2pT6pbj4imapump
, a coin born of a meme, a coin that was meant to be a
joke. He has waved this coin around on television. He has waved it
around on his social media platform. And every time he speaks of it,
the price moves. Every time he posts of it, the price moves. That,
Mr. Speaker, is the power of a platform turned into a price chart.
When a single man with a single account can move the savings of
ordinary people up and down with a single post, that is not a market.
That is a megaphone pointed at people's wallets, and that is the kind
of unregulated promotion that I am rising to speak about today.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to call to your attention the decentralization of
cryptocurrency. The cryptocrats want to decentralize cryptocurrency so 
that they can have peer-to-peer transference of dollars, huge sums of 
dollars, untold amounts of dollars, peer-to-peer transfers.
  Why is this so important to them? If you can transfer peer-to-peer, 
you can engage in tax evasion--more than tax avoidance. Tax avoidance 
is legal. Tax evasion is illegal. You can transfer huge sums of money 
from one person to another without some central entity that can be 
there to make sure that it is properly regulated. That is what the 
cryptocrats want. They want to be able to just transfer money. That 
way, you can avoid taxes.
  You can also do something else when you have this peer-to-peer 
transference. You can also transfer that money at a speed that is 
unbelievably fast. You can transfer it to a terrorist organization. It 
can be received by those who would do us harm, those who would disrupt 
our society, and those who would disrupt the democracy that we cherish.
  Yes, the cryptocrats are in the business of buying and selling. They 
are also in the business of contributing to those who would agree with 
what I am antithetical to. Those who would agree with what I am 
antithetical to would allow them to have peer-to-peer transfers and 
allow them to have memecoins that are meaningless, nothing but a 
thought, a fiction.
  I am speaking truth about power, not just to it. Yes, 
decentralization without regulation is a problem.
  Of course, the cryptocrats, whether wittingly or unwittingly, are 
moving in the direction of creating something akin to the demise of the 
almighty dollar. Cryptocrats would, if they could, have cryptocurrency 
become the preeminent currency.
  There is a war for currency supremacy going on across the globe. The 
dollar is the supreme currency across the globe. It is the reserve 
currency of choice across the globe. The cryptocrats would have the 
cryptocurrency become the currency of choice. Use the cryptocurrency. 
Use it, and you don't have to have it go through some centralized 
location. Just transfer your money like you please.
  In fact, if they had their way, cryptocurrency would be tantamount to 
banks. They would have unregulated banks. The sad thing about what I 
have just said is that the banks don't know who their friends are. They 
don't understand, it seems, that there are some of us who are fighting 
this. They don't seem to understand that.
  Well, I can tell you this: I am going to protect the American banking 
system, whether the banks will join in and help or not. I am going to 
protect the American banking system because, in so doing, I am 
protecting the American dollar, and in so doing, I am helping to 
protect American democracy to a certain extent.
  If the banking system fails, people lose trust. They lose trust in 
the economy. That impacts the democracy in the sense that we allow 
people to be placed into office who would facilitate this decentralized 
transfer of money.
  I am opposed to it. I am going to protect the banks in this country, 
a system that has functioned. It has allowed the dollar to be the 
supreme currency of choice globally. We have to protect the American 
dollar. I am going to do that.
  The cryptocrats, if they had their way, would own every Member of 
Congress, but there are some who resist. I am a part of the resistance. 
As a matter of fact, I may be at the tip of the spear of the 
resistance, a part of the avant-garde. I am the resistance, to a 
certain extent. There are others, but I assure you that I am going to 
remain the architect of some portion of this resistance as long as I am 
in Congress.

[[Page H3549]]

  Therein is the operative phrase for the cryptocrats: He said as long 
as he is in Congress. Well, if we just get him out of Congress, we 
don't have him to contend with.
  Well, you can do that, but there are others who will follow. There 
are. There are others who are already in the fight. They are. They are 
there. I can assure you of this: I am going to fight you to the bitter 
end. Until my last days, I will fight what I see as a demise of the 
dollar, a peer-to-peer transference of money such that you can avoid 
taxes, and the creation of nothing and selling it as something.
  This is the epitome of ridiculosity, to allow such things to occur 
and not challenge them.
  I assure all who listen that I am going to protect your wallet. There 
are people who say they want to put more money in your wallet? Well, I 
am going to protect your wallet and make sure that you can get money in 
your wallet and not allow people to cleverly disguise themselves as 
persons who want to regulate when, in fact, they just want to pass 
something under the guise of regulation so that the cryptocrats can 
continue to move in the direction of dominance with the cryptocurrency, 
the crypto dollars, as it were.

  This is not something that we should take lightly, and I do not. I 
want to assure you that I am censured but not silenced.
  I also want to assure you of something else: The countdown to 
impeachment continues. What the President has done as it relates to 
wars, as it relates to pumping and dumping, which I have explained 
earlier, and as it relates to his disrespect for the Constitution of 
the United States of America, he has done things that are clearly 
impeachable.
  It is just a matter of time, Mr. President. Your day will come. 
Someone is going to stand in the well of the House of Representatives 
and read Articles of Impeachment to remove you from office. It would be 
the thing that this country should do so as to prevent another 
cryptocrat, such as yourself--yes, the President is a cryptocrat--to 
prevent another cryptocrat such as yourself from assuming power. We 
have to protect American democracy from the cryptocrats.
  We have already had a former Vice President say that this President 
is a great threat to the Republic. I think he said the greatest threat 
to the Republic. President Donald John Trump: a threat to the Republic 
and a threat to democracy.
  Cryptocracy is his main concern, it seems, because it is a family 
business that he has brought to the White House, and they are using 
this family business to make billions of dollars at the expense of 
unsuspecting Americans and people of other stripes, as well.

                              {time}  1140

  I am censured, not silenced, and I am engaging in a countdown to 
impeachment. I know that there are people who want to know when. It 
will happen when it happens, and I assure you it is going to happen.
  Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the time. I am proud to say that I am 
Al Green, the OG Al Green, unbought, unbossed, unafraid, uncontrolled 
by the cryptocrats.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities towards the President.

                          ____________________