Profits for $TRUMP Token Architects, $3.81B in Losses for Everyone Else 📉

Nearly 1 million wallets holding the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin are sitting on combined losses of $3.81 billion, according to a Nansen analysis reported by The New York Times. Of roughly 1.48 million wallets tracked, 988,905 — about two out of every three buyers — are underwater, while just under 500,000 wallets booked profits totaling $4 billion. Nansen characterized the split as "a small number of early buyers capturing enormous gains while the broad retail majority absorbed the losses."

TRUMP launched on January 17, 2025, three days before President Donald Trump's second inauguration, and jumped from below $1 to a record $73.43 within two days, briefly lifting its market value near $15 billion. The token is down roughly 98% from that peak and trades around $1.70, according to CoinGecko. Chainalysis traced more than $324 million in creator-linked trading fees to associated addresses in the months after launch, and Trump's 2025 financial disclosure listed a $636 million windfall from the memecoin through CIC Digital, the Trump-linked entity behind the token. The memecoin's own website had warned it was not an investment.

Nansen also reviewed World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the token linked to the crypto trading platform co-founded by Trump and his three sons. WLFI was first sold to investors at 1.5 cents and later at 5 cents; of nearly 27,000 tracked wallets, 85% recorded losses totaling $83 million, while the remaining 15% profited $23 million. Nansen said additional exchange buyers are not visible in on-chain data, so total losses are likely higher. Trump's disclosure showed he earned just under $800 million from the World Liberty Financial platform in 2025 through an entity that collects 75% of WLFI sales revenue regardless of price.

Trump's combined crypto-related income topped $1.4 billion last year, according to the nearly 1,000-page disclosure. Asked by CNBC on Thursday about perceived conflicts of interest, Trump said there was "nothing illegal" and "nothing wrong" with his disclosed crypto profits and claimed that other people were responsible for his investments. Senator Peter Schiff, in a separate comment, called the tokens a way to buy access to the president rather than a real investment, saying, "He's actually had events at the White House where the top owners of Trump coin are allowed to attend. But it's really a way to bribe the president. You don't have to give him money directly, just buy his token, because who else would buy the token? It's a lousy investment."

The Securities and Exchange Commission said in a February 2025 statement that meme coins are not securities, placing the market outside its oversight. Senate Democrats have separately urged a probe into a reported $500 million crypto deal between entities tied to the Trumps and the UAE.