Most Investors in Trump Memecoin Suffer Heavy Losses While Early Traders Profit
A report from a cryptocurrency analytics
firm details how those who bought the Trump memecoin have
fared, with most retail investors having lost money while sophisticated traders
did better.
·
A report
by cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen
found that nearly 989,000 investors
in the $TRUMP memecoin had incurred losses by the end of June
2026.
·
Total investor
losses are estimated at US$3.81
billion, with around two-thirds
of all buyers losing money.
·
According
to financial disclosures, Donald
Trump earned about US$636
million from the memecoin venture and
at least US$2.2 billion
from his overall business activities in 2025.
·
The report
states that the project's revenue model allowed Trump and affiliated entities to
earn fees from token trading, regardless of whether the token's price rose or fell.
·
The $TRUMP memecoin
was launched in January 2025,
shortly before Trump's inauguration, and was promoted through his social media platform.
·
The token's
price reportedly:
o Rose from under US$1 to a peak of US$75.35.
o Later declined by about 97%, trading at approximately
US$1.76 by
early July 2026.
·
Around
500,000 crypto wallets
recorded combined profits of about US$4
billion, with gains concentrated among a relatively small group
of early and sophisticated
traders using automated trading strategies.
·
The report
concludes that retail investors
absorbed most of the losses, while early participants captured the
majority of profits.
·
Trump's
crypto venture World Liberty
Financial also generated substantial income, although its governance
token $WLFI
has declined sharply in value.
·
The White
House defended Trump's crypto activities, stating that his administration's policies
are intended to promote U.S. leadership in digital assets and denied allegations
of wrongdoing.
·
Legal experts
suggested that investors could potentially pursue class-action lawsuits, although
regulatory scrutiny of memecoins has been significantly
reduced.
·
The $TRUMP website includes a
disclaimer stating that the token is intended as an expression of support and not as an investment opportunity.
Key
Takeaway
According to Nansen's analysis,
the $TRUMP memecoin generated significant profits for
its creators and a small group of early traders, while the majority of retail investors
experienced substantial financial losses, highlighting the high-risk and speculative
nature of memecoins.
An
up-to-date tally of Trump followers turned crypto investors is in. And for them,
the overall results are remarkably bad.
Nearly
1 million people who bought President Trump’s memecoin
have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency
analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion.
The
analytics firm’s assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual
financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636 million payout on the
same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least $2.2 billion from all of his business
ventures in 2025.
The
odds were always in his favor. Mr. Trump profited whether
the price of his memecoin went up or down. He collected
returns whenever anyone traded the tokens, as he repeatedly pushed his followers
to do, using his Truth Social account to promote the coin.
Once
a crypto skeptic, Mr. Trump embraced the profit-making
opportunity of digital currencies in 2024, while he was running for president. He
and his sons founded a crypto start-up called World Liberty Financial, which soon
began selling a coin called $WLFI that has also declined sharply.
Three
days before his inauguration, Mr. Trump unveiled a second Trump-branded investment
— the $TRUMP memecoin, a type of novelty currency with
little practical value.
“It’s
time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media.
“Join my very special Trump community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW!” But that turned out
to be bad advice.
Most
crypto transactions are publicly visible, recorded on a digital ledger called the
blockchain. That allows analysts to trace purchases of digital coins from individual
crypto accounts, known as wallets. Nansen’s data shows that, as of the end of June,
988,905 buyers of the $TRUMP memecoin have lost money,
representing roughly two out of every three buyers.
Cumulatively,
these 988,905 wallets have lost a total of $3.81 billion, including buyers who have
held on to their stash and recorded paper losses, according to Nansen. The coin
was trading at $1.76 as of Friday, down 97 percent from its peak price of $75.35.
Nicholas
Pinto is among the losers. A frequent crypto trader who voted for Mr. Trump in 2024,
Mr. Pinto said he invested a total of roughly $500,000 in the $TRUMP coin, and has
now lost about half that investment.
“He
is leveraging the power of being president to launch currencies, when he seems trustworthy
in the public’s eye,” Mr. Pinto said in an interview. “It is kind of incredible.
It is almost a legal scam.”
The
White House this past week rejected any suggestion that Mr. Trump has cashed in
at the expense of his followers. Since arriving at the White House, Mr. Trump and
appointees have curtailed regulatory oversight of the industry, including policies
related to memecoins.
“President
Trump proudly made the United States the crypto capital of the world,” Anna Kelly,
a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement to The New York Times after Mr. Trump’s
annual report was made public on Tuesday. “All actions by President Trump and his
administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.”
A
representative for the $TRUMP memecoin venture did not
respond to a request for comment. David Wachsman, a spokesman for World Liberty,
blamed the plummeting value of $WLFI on broader market conditions that have forced
down the prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“No
one can control the markets,” he said. “World Liberty stands behind the governance
token WLFI, which has had increasing utility in a growing ecosystem since day one.”
Mr.
Trump was not the only winner on the $TRUMP coin. After it launched, its price surged
from less than $1 to more than $70, creating a window of opportunity for sophisticated
crypto traders to extract a big profit.
These
advanced traders, often using automated programs to purchase digital currencies,
know that memecoins often skyrocket quickly in value and
then crash, as the early buyers sell their holdings to less sophisticated, slower-moving
investors hoping to get in on the action.
A
little under 500,000 crypto wallets have recorded profits from $TRUMP, totaling $4 billion, according to Nansen. But that figure “reflects
a small number of early buyers capturing enormous gains while the broad retail majority
absorbed the losses,” the report said.
The
memecoin was only one of several crypto ventures that
reeled in profits for Mr. Trump and his allies.
Mr.
Trump’s total profits from World Liberty reached $799 million last year, according
to his financial disclosure, including hundreds of millions from the United Arab
Emirates, which secretly moved in early 2025 to buy nearly half the company. A Trump
business entity also collected a 75 percent cut of sales of $WLFI, after the deduction
of certain expenses, guaranteeing that Mr. Trump would profit, even if the coin’s
price ultimately crashed.
The
losses on World Liberty’s coin are more complicated to track. Initially, the company
sold the coin directly to investors, at prices of either $0.015 or $0.05, according
to Nansen.
Anyone
who bought the coin at $0.05 has made a slight profit, Nansen found. But $WLFI did
not become widely available until September, when it started trading on secondary
markets, known as exchanges.
Those
transactions are not all publicly traceable. Of the 26,663 wallets that Nansen tracked,
85 percent have recorded a loss. The total losses amount to $83 million, compared
to $23 million in profits.
But
that is likely just a tiny cut of the overall losses — as the others buyers purchased
the coins on exchanges whose data is not publicly visible. Today, World Liberty’s
coin trades at $0.057, down 82 percent since September.
Despite
the cratering prices, Mr. Trump has faced few consequences from his ventures, because
federal regulators have largely abandoned crypto enforcement.
Stephen
Gillers, a New York University law and legal ethics professor, said he would not
be surprised if Mr. Trump and his partners eventually face a class-action lawsuit
from followers who lost money — even though the Securities and Exchange Commission
announced in February 2025 that it will no longer scrutinize memecoin deals.
The
$TRUMP memecoin site had warned buyers that they should
not see the token as an investment vehicle. “Trump Memes are intended to function
as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied
by the symbol ‘$TRUMP’ and the associated artwork, and are not intended to be, or
to be the subject of, an investment opportunity,” the website says.
But
Mr. Gillers said that this disclosure is likely not enough to curb future legal
challenges, even if they have to wait until after Mr. Trump leaves office.
“Trump
back when he was a real estate developer boasted that he plays ‘to people’s fantasies,’”
Mr. Gillers said. “Here he seems to have encouraged supporters to invest with the
expectation they could anticipate riches — even as he himself was cashing out.”