President Trump and his family reaped vast
financial rewards from a memecoin that generated losses
for hundreds of thousands of investors.
·
President
Donald Trump disclosed earning over
$1.4 billion from cryptocurrency-related ventures since
returning to the White House.
·
His $TRUMP
memecoin alone
generated approximately $636 million in
revenue for Trump and his partners.
·
The memecoin has no
intrinsic value and derives its worth from speculation
linked to Trump's popularity and presidency.
·
Despite
Trump's gains, around 764,000 crypto wallets, mostly
belonging to small investors, lost money after
the value of $TRUMP declined sharply.
·
According
to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, only
58 investors earned profits exceeding $10
million each, largely by selling before the price
crash.
·
Trump
and his partners continued to earn transaction
fees on every $TRUMP trade, regardless of whether
investors made or lost money.
·
Trump's
financial disclosure also showed $799
million in earnings from World Liberty Financial, a
separate cryptocurrency venture.
·
A
significant portion of these earnings reportedly came after the United
Arab Emirates purchased a stake in World Liberty Financial.
·
The
price of $WLFI,
World Liberty's cryptocurrency token, has fallen
by more than 80% from its peak,
causing substantial investor losses.
·
Trump's
business structure reportedly entitled his company to 75%
of all $WLFI token sales, allowing profits even
as the token's value declined.
·
Former
financial regulators and ethics experts criticised the business model, arguing
it allowed insiders to profit while retail investors bore the losses.
·
The White
House denied any conflict of interest,
stating that President Trump's actions are taken in the best interests of the
American people.
·
Melania
Trump reportedly earned around $6
million from sales of her own memecoin.
·
Trump's
administration introduced several policies favourable to the crypto industry,
including:
o The U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
deciding not to regulate memecoins as securities.
o Legislation expanding the use of stablecoins,
signed after World Liberty launched its own stablecoin.
·
Critics
argue that reduced regulatory oversight leaves retail investors with limited
protection against speculative crypto investments.
·
Trump
promoted his memecoin through exclusive events,
including dinners for top investors, temporarily boosting token prices.
·
Interest
in the $TRUMP coin has since faded, with its price falling about
80% over the past year, according to the
report.
·
Crypto
entrepreneur Justin Sun filed
a lawsuit against World Liberty Financial, alleging restrictions on selling his
holdings; the company denied the allegations.
·
Trump's
financial disclosure also revealed significant
overseas business dealings, particularly in the
Middle East, involving foreign governments and corporations.
·
The
filing showed investments of up to $5 million each in
major AI-focused companies—including Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Amazon, Meta
Platforms, and Broadcom—made
around the time the administration announced an AI deregulation plan.
·
Trump
stated that his investment accounts are managed independently by brokerage
firms and that he does not direct individual investment
decisions.
·
The
disclosure also noted that Vice President JD Vance
earned $1–5 million in royalties from
his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy,
during 2025.
[ABS News Service/02.07.2026]
A
large chunk of the $2 billion haul President Trump took in last year came as hundreds
of thousands of his fans and other investors bet on a speculative cryptocurrency
called $TRUMP, hoping its value would soar with his return to the White House.
But
while Mr. Trump amassed an eye-popping $636 million from the cryptocurrency, known
as a memecoin, many of his followers who heeded his call
to purchase the coin came out losers.
That
outcome, documented by an independent analysis of trades and fees paid out from
$TRUMP token sales, is drawing renewed attention this week, as Mr. Trump for the
first time has detailed the extraordinary $1.4 billion in revenue he secured just
from the cryptocurrency industry since he returned to the White House.
The
president’s 927-page financial disclosure showed how Mr. Trump and his family reaped
huge financial rewards in 2025 through his money-losing Trump Media venture and
a separate cryptocurrency firm called World Liberty Financial, even as routine investors
suffered vast losses.
He
also amassed hundreds of millions through deals that involved foreign governments
or corporations with agenda items pending before the Trump administration.
On
Wednesday, Mr. Trump dismissed questions about how much money he had made after
returning to the White House, suggesting that he left personal financial decisions
related to his investments to others.
“I
don’t know if I had a better career in politics or business,” Mr. Trump said as
he was about to board his new Air Force One jet donated by the government of Qatar
with his two oldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., looking on. “But I had
a great career in business. And you saw the cash.”
The
memecoin, which features an image of Mr. Trump pumping
his fist the way he did after a 2024 assassination attempt, has no intrinsic value
itself. Instead, it was a bet on the aura around Mr. Trump and the idea that the
coin’s fortunes would rise with his presidency.
In
a way, Mr. Trump’s cryptocurrency windfall is a reflection of the speculative nature
of the nascent industry, in which executives behind these often highly volatile
ventures are at times able to generate huge profits at the expense of smaller investors,
who often lose vast sums on experimental coins.
Former
federal financial regulators said Mr. Trump has taken that to a new extreme, structuring
his crypto ventures so he always made money on the front end, according to disclosures
from the companies, no matter what happened to the business in the long run.
“It
is hard to wrap your head around that the president of the United States would engage
in this level of self-enrichment at the expense of so many of his supporters,” said
Lee Reiners, a former Federal Reserve Bank examiner who now studies cryptocurrency
issues at Duke University. “This is a president of the United States who has made
more money off crypto since he took office than he made in any prior year in his
entire business career.”
The
White House, in a statement Wednesday, rejected the suggestion that Mr. Trump is
exploiting his followers.
“All
actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest
of the American people,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in the statement.
“Neither the president nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in
conflicts of interest.”
As
of the middle of last year, according to Chainalysis, a crypto analytics firm, 58
investors in the $TRUMP coin had made profits in excess of $10 million, totaling an estimated $1.1 billion — most of them early traders
who got out before the coin crashed in value. At the same time, some 764,000 crypto
wallets, most with small holdings, lost money on $TRUMP, the Chainalysis data shows.
But
every time $TRUMP was traded, the president and his partners collected transaction
fees, which along with other revenues from the coin totaled
hundreds of millions of dollars, his financial disclosure shows.
David
Wachsman, a spokesman for World Liberty Financial, called the venture a successful
one and he noted that “tens of thousands of early supporters” are still “in the
black even as overall market conditions have evolved” since the decline in cryptocurrency
markets since last fall.
Bill
Zanker, Mr. Trump’s partner on the $TRUMP memecoin and
a longtime associate, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Separately,
Melania Trump, the first lady, pulled in about $6 million last year in sales of
her memecoin, which was much less successful than her
husband’s.
Mr.
Trump’s annual report shows that he earned an additional $799 million from World
Liberty, including a large share when the government of the United Arab Emirates
secretly purchased a stake in the company, just as Mr. Trump was returning to the
White House.
Meanwhile,
the price of $WLFI, a cryptocurrency coin created by World Liberty Financial, has
sunk to less than 6 cents, a more than 80 percent drop from its peak, generating
enormous losses for investors who bought in at a higher price.
That
decline did not matter much for Mr. Trump: A Trump entity received a 75 percent
cut of all sales of $WLFI, according to a disclosure by the company, allowing him
to profit from the coin long before its price cratered.
While
he was accumulating this new wealth, Mr. Trump’s administration was taking steps
that allowed his crypto ventures to raise their profits. Early last year, the Securities
and Exchange Commission announced that it would not regulate memecoins like a security. And Mr. Trump promoted legislation
he signed into law expanding the use of stablecoins in the United States, a few
months after World Liberty issued its own such coin.
(Stablecoins
are a form of cryptocurrency that are supposed to maintain a lock on a $1 value
and then are used as a way to store crypto investment funds or buy goods or services.
Memecoins are considered collectibles that buyers speculate
might increase in value.)
“I
find it sad that these investors have no protection from the S.E.C. — the agency
has gleefully abandoned them,” said John Reed Stark, the former chief of the S.E.C.
office that investigated online investment fraud. “It is all about a scam that is
as old as securities markets themselves — and it is called a pump-and-dump scheme
that enriches a few at the expense of the masses.”
The
agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr.
Trump has not shown signs that he is discouraged by the financial losses of his
investors. Instead, he has looked for ways to temporarily increase the price of
his cryptocurrency ventures through special promotions.
Last
year, for example, he held a dinner at his Virginia golf club for the top buyers
of his memecoin, sparking a bidding war that attracted
investors from around the world, temporarily pushing up the price.
A
similar event at Mar-a-Lago this year generated much less investment, with the price
of $TRUMP hovering around $2.83, about an 80 percent decline from a year earlier.
The
coin is “completely dead,” said Morten Christensen, an investor who attended the
$TRUMP event at Mar-a-Lago. “Nobody cares about a meme that’s down 97 percent.”
Even
some of the president’s staunchest supporters in the crypto world have grown disillusioned.
In
April, the crypto mogul Justin Sun, who spent tens of millions of dollars on $WLFI
and $TRUMP, sued World Liberty, claiming that the company had illegally prevented
him from selling his stash in order to prop up the price. (World Liberty denied
the claims.)
Other
significant chunks of Mr. Trump’s earnings in 2025 came from deals with foreign
governments or businesses based overseas, mainly in the Middle East, as the Trump
family, unlike during his first term, has moved ahead with new international deals
with nations that have keen interests in U.S. policy.
Mr.
Trump himself has shown little remorse about backing away from his first-term pledge
to not have his family conduct business abroad.
The
financial disclosure also revealed details about the extent of the president’s investments
in companies affected by new administration policies.
On
July 23, Mr. Trump purchased up to $5 million each in Broadcom, Meta, Amazon, Apple,
Microsoft and Nvidia, all companies focused on profits from artificial intelligence
markets, the filing shows. That same day, the Trump administration unveiled its
artificial intelligence action plan, in which the White House expressed a desire
to deregulate the industry. Prices for four of the six stocks have since increased,
with Apple and Broadcom surging more than 30 percent.
Those
purchases were not listed on any of the periodic transaction reports that covered
2025, as is required under law. His disclosure report filed on Wednesday shows he
paid a small fine for failing to honor this rule.
Mr.
Trump’s brokerage firms have authority over his accounts and are prohibited from
accepting trade requests from him and his family, as The New York Times previously
reported.
On
Wednesday, the president reiterated that he was not involved in individual stock
decisions, saying the choices are made by investment advisers who do not consult
him or his family.
“I
don’t even speak to them,” Mr. Trump said. “So I have many
people, I don’t know what they call it, closed accounts or something. You put your
money in and that’s it. I don’t talk to them. They’re big institutions and they
run it.”
The
president’s revenue since returning to the White House vastly surpassed that of
Vice President JD Vance, though he also saw an increase in income after his election
from his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” In 2025, he made between roughly $1 million
and $5 million off royalties from his book, compared to less than $100,000 the year
before.