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NEARLY A MILLION INVESTORS LOST A TOTAL OF $3.8 BILLION ON TRUMP
CRYPTO COIN  
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Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany
July 4, 2026
The New York Times
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_ 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. _

President Donald Trump's is thought to have made billions of dollars
from crypto ventures doing his second term, Studio graphique FMM

 

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
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an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636
million payout
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on the same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least $2.2 billion
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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 [[link removed]]
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
[[link removed]] 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
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regulatory oversight of the industry, including policies
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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
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to buy nearly half the company. A Trump business entity also collected
a 75 percent cut of sales
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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
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$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
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that it will no longer scrutinize memecoin deals.

The $TRUMP memecoin site [[link removed]] had warned
buyers that they should not see the token as an investment vehicle.
“Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support
for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the
symbol ‘$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
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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.”

_ERIC LIPTON_ [[link removed]]_ is a Times
investigative reporter, who digs into a broad range of topics from
Pentagon spending to toxic chemicals._

_DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY_ [[link removed]]_
writes about the crypto industry for The Times from New York. He can
be reached at [email protected]__._

_Get __the best of the New York Times_
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newsletter. Gain unlimited access to all of The Times with a__ digital
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* Donald Trump
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* corruption
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* cryptocurrency
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