Trump's billion-dollar crypto gain came with almost $4B investor losses

President Donald Trump earned a $636 million payout from his Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin while the people who bought it lost considerably more, according to blockchain data from Nansen and Trump’s own 2025 financial disclosure.

The analytics firm counted 988,905 wallets that lost a total of $3.81 billion by the end of June.

Nansen’s tally, first reported by The New York Times, adds up money already lost with paper losses still sitting in wallets that have not been sold. 

Roughly two in three wallets that ever bought TRUMP are underwater. Less than 500,000 wallets booked about $4 billion in profit, and Nansen said those gains were made by early buyers and automated traders who bought before the run-up and sold into the crowd that followed.

The token itself tells the story. TRUMP changed hands near $1.76 on Friday, about 97% below the $75.35 peak it hit on January 19, 2025, the day before Trump’s second inauguration, per CoinMarketCap data. He had launched the coin three days earlier and promoted it on Truth Social as a way for supporters to join his community.

Why Trump made a win-win gamble

Retail buyers needed the price to climb. But Trump did not, with The New York Times reporting that the meme coin earned money from trading activity itself, so he gained revenue whether the token rose or fell. That structure is the difference between the two numbers at the top of this story.

His financial disclosure fills in the rest. The filing reported at least $1.4 billion in crypto-related income for the year, more than half of the $2.2 billion Trump reported overall. According to Cryptopolitan, the $1.4 billion in crypto earnings comprises $635 million in memecoin royalties, $527 million from token sales by World Liberty Financial, and approximately $263 million from stakes in related companies.

World Liberty Financial buyers have fared poorly too. Nansen found that 85% of the 26,663 WLFI wallets it tracked incurred losses of approximately $83 million, offset by roughly $23 million in profits. 

The company cautioned that the actual damage is likely larger, as many exchange trades cannot be traced on-chain. WLFI traded near $0.056 on CoinMarketCap, down about 88% from its September 2025 high.

Not every buyer remained quiet, with Nicholas Pinto telling The New York Times he put around $500,000 into TRUMP after backing Trump in the 2024 election and figures he is down about half. He called the project “almost a legal scam.”

Asked about the income in a CNBC interview, Trump said he did not know his crypto ventures had earned at least $1.4 billion, that he could find out the exact figure if he wanted to, and that there was nothing wrong with making money from digital assets. 

He added that he had no intention of pulling his family out of the business. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told The New York Times that Trump had turned the United States into the “crypto capital of the world” and acted in the country’s interest.

Senate scrutinizes Trump’s financial disclosure.

The numbers arrived as lawmakers put finishing touches on a crypto market structure bill, with Democrats putting up a fight. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand renewed her calls for ethical guardrails that will prevent the President, members of Congress, and their families from profiting off digital assets. 

“We cannot allow members of Congress, senior administration officials, presidents, or vice presidents to get rich off these industries because of their insider status,” she said in May at the Consensus Miami conference.

Gillibrand also co-sponsors the End Crypto Corruption Act, a separate bill from Senator Jeff Merkley with 19 Democratic co-sponsors that would stop senior officials and their families from issuing or endorsing tokens, memecoins, NFTs, and stablecoins. 

Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ruben Gallego, and Angela Alsobrooks have made similar arguments, with Gallego writing on X that “Trump is using the presidency to profit off the American people.”

Republicans would love to move quickly. South Carolina Senator and Banking Committee Chairman, Tim Scott has called for a full Senate vote this month, just before the August recess, with the committee voting 15-9 on a substitute amendment. 

Gallego and Alsobrooks voted to move the bill out of committee, but would not guarantee a floor vote if ethical concerns were not addressed.

If Senators can agree on ethical provisions, while settling anti-money-laundering and DeFi oversight questions, before the Senate leaves for its August recess, then the bill has a strong chance of passing.

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