California bans officials from issuing memecoins. $TRUMP is not one

Gavin Newsom signed AB 2409 on Saturday, and his office titled the announcement THE OPPOSITE OF TRUMP. The bill bans California public officials from issuing memecoins. The president of the United States is not a California public official, so the memecoin ban does not reach the coin it was named after.

“No official should profit off their office, and we're putting stronger protections in place to ensure it doesn't happen in our state.”

— Gavin Newsom, signing AB 2409

Gavin Newsom, governor of California

The coin in question, by the published numbers:

• $TRUMP launched three days before the January 2025 inauguration and went from under $1 to $75 within two days, reaching a $14bn market cap.
• 988,905 buyers lost $3.81bn between them.
• Trump's financial disclosure lists $636m in royalties, and Trump Organization affiliates hold about 80% of supply.
• The token trades at $2.03 today, 97.3% below that $75 high.

Both sides of the transfer are published. Buyers are down $3.81bn, an average of $3,853 each across 988,905 of them, while the disclosure form shows $636m going the other way. The royalties amount to 16.7% of what buyers lost, before counting the supply. The tokenomics were public from the start: Trump Organization affiliates hold about 80% of it, worth $11.2bn at the $14bn peak. Two senators asked the SEC to investigate in August.

What the law binds

The law applies to state public officials, which includes the governor who signed it. The released text does not set penalties, does not name an effective date, and does not say whether the ban reaches tokens already in circulation. California can write rules for its own officeholders and nothing else, and conflicts at federal level stay where they were: the crypto market structure bill picked up 870 judges in an ethics trade earlier this month.

The bills that rode along

The measures with operational teeth were signed the same day and got less of the press release. AB 2409 arrived with ten other bills on corruption and consumer protection, including compensation for victims of crypto scams and seizure of cryptocurrency from transnational criminal networks. Seizure powers and a victim fund do work that a prohibition on a category of token cannot, and we have been tracking the enforcement side since the US and UK signed their first joint pact on scam compounds this month.

Newsom is not hiding the politics. His statement calls Donald Trump a scam that continues to hurt American families, and the press release headline does the rest. A governor with national ambitions signing a bill named after his likely opponent is politics, and saying so does not make the underlying numbers smaller.

The useful test for AB 2409 arrives the first time a California official wants to put their name on a token. Until then it is a rule with no cases, sitting next to ten laws that will produce plenty. The $3.81bn stays where it is either way.

Informational material, not investment advice. The text released so far does not state penalties, an effective date, or whether the ban reaches tokens that already exist.