Nearly a Million Investors Lost a Total of $3.8 Billion on Trump Crypto Coin
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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or whatever flavor of insult suits the moment.