Pennsylvania’s junior Sen. Dave McCormick has put as much as $1 million dollars of his own money into bitcoin this year.
No problem there. However, McCormick serves on the Senate Banking Committee’s subcommittee that deals with digital assets. It is the nine-member group charged with discussion of the BITCOIN Act of 2025, raising the specter of inside knowledge prior to his stock trading.
McCormick is one of nine members of the subcommittee given jurisdiction on digital assets by the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Also serving on the subcommittee are Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
The former CEO of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates has made recent investments in the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF worth up to $600,000 in March alone, according to his U.S. Senate Financial Disclosures.
- March 3: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
- March 5: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
- March 10: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
- March 11: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
- March 13: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
- March 20: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
- Between $50,001 – $100,000
- March 24: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
- Between $15,000 – $50,000
- March 25: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
- Between $50,001 – $100,000
- March 27: Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Stock Purchase
On March 11, Lummis, majority chair of the committee, introduced Senate Bill 954 that would “establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and other programs to ensure the transparent management of Bitcoin holdings of the Federal Government, to offset costs utilizing certain resources of the Federal Reserve System, and for other purposes.” Since that introduction and referral, McCormick has purchased up to $450,000 in stock.
A companion bill has been introduced in the House, cosponsored by Rep. Nicholas Begich (R-Alaska).
Lummis has been endorsed for reelection by President Donald Trump, who has praised her efforts to position the U.S. as the global hub for cryptocurrency. He used his Truth Social account to say that Lummis “is working closely with me to make America the Crypto Capital of the World.”
The Wyoming senator’s bill proposes a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to address the national debt, which stands at $36 trillion. In a recent interview, she claims that a Bitcoin reserve could potentially halve the national debt, as Bitcoin has historically increased in value by about 55% each year. The bill also proposes that the Treasury Department purchase one million Bitcoins over a five-year period.
In a 2024 op-ed in the Washington Examiner, McCormick wrote of his support of Blockchain and crypto and his view that America must lead on blockchain or run the risk of national security concerns from countries such as China. He also believes there are great benefits to the Commonwealth.
“By 2030, the industry is expected to support as many as 4 million jobs. As the CEO of a software company during the Pittsburgh renaissance, I know the economic impact tech innovation can have. With growing blockchain and crypto ecosystems in my home state, places such as Allentown and Philadelphia could reap the benefits of this boom.”
However, there are more red flags.
World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm largely owned by a Trump family corporate entity, has been offering partnerships to other firms to bolster a startup firm’s public profile, according to The New York Times.
But there was a catch that would require a multimillion payment to World Liberty. The Trump family has lived on the line of conflicts of interest, but none “compare to those that have emerged since the birth of World Liberty.”
Authors Eric Lipton, David Yaffe-Bellany and Ben Protess write that Trump is now the industry’s top policy maker and has filled his administration with “sympathizers to the crypto cause. In addition, the Justice Department recently disbanded a crypto crimes task force, continuing a broader unwinding of Biden-era scrutiny of the industry.
“There’s a huge conflict of interest here,” said Bloomberg News investigative reporter Zeke Faux. “Trump has his own crypto businesses, and his administration is now deciding an entirely new set of rules that are going to govern this industry.”
“Members of the government are not supposed to receive money from people who are trying to influence policy, and these new crypto projects provide a very direct way for such people to do so, often in ways that can be a little bit more challenging to trace than, say, a bank transfer,” said Molly White, a Crypto researcher and software engineer.
A spokesperson for McCormick said “Senator McCormick’s investments are consistent with Senate ethics rules and financial disclosure requirements.”
