Cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen found that nearly one million investors in President Donald Trump’s $TRUMP memecoin have collectively lost $3.8 billion, while Trump himself gained $636 million from the venture — profiting regardless of whether the token was bought or sold, according to the report.
The analysis was triggered by Trump’s financial disclosure, first reported by The New York Times, which showed the president accumulated $2.2 billion in new income from all his business interests in 2025. The $TRUMP token, launched on January 17, 2025 — days before his second inauguration — formed a significant piece of that picture, and the Nansen report isolates exactly how the gains and losses were distributed between the issuer and retail participants.
Who’s Affected?
The retail investors who answered Trump’s January 2025 call to buy — “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” he posted on X — bore the full force of the token’s collapse. $TRUMP peaked at $75.35 shortly after launch and, as of the most recent available trading data, had fallen approximately 97 percent to $1.76. One named investor, Nicholas Pinto, told The New York Times he lost roughly $250,000 of the $500,000 he committed, characterising the venture as “almost a legal scam” — arguing Trump was “leveraging the power of being president to launch currencies” while appearing trustworthy to a broad public. For context on how Trump’s broader crypto earnings were disclosed, see Trump’s financial disclosure revealing over $1 billion in crypto earnings.
The loss distribution is not limited to $TRUMP. Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric also launched World Liberty Financial, a crypto start-up that sells a token called $WLFI. That token has also retreated from its peak value, the source reporting notes, though no precise loss figures for $WLFI investors were included in the Nansen analysis. World Liberty Financial did not respond to a request for comment, according to the original reporting.
What Comes Next?
Congressional pressure is now the most immediate variable to watch. At a House Financial Services Committee hearing in June, Representative Al Green (D-TX) accused the president directly of operating a “Ponzi scheme” through the memecoin structure: “We have legalized a Ponzi scheme known as a memecoin… and the president of the United States of America is engaged in this activity,” Green said, per the source reporting. Green added that Trump was “setting the tone and tenor” for the broader cryptocurrency market by his personal involvement. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The scrutiny sits alongside a broader debate over crypto regulation, including legislation such as the CLARITY Act, where the president’s own financial interests in crypto have complicated negotiations over digital asset oversight.
At the same time, Trump has used his executive authority to roll back federal oversight of crypto markets, including easing tax-reporting requirements — a move that has intensified the conflict-of-interest debate in Washington. The Supreme Court ruling that gave Trump direct power over crypto regulators adds institutional weight to those concerns, as it concentrates enforcement discretion in an administration that is itself a major market participant. Meanwhile, the SEC has eased up on 60 percent of its crypto enforcement cases since the administration took office, a shift that critics argue removes a key check on exactly the kind of retail-facing token issuance at the centre of this story.
Taken together, the Nansen data and the regulatory rollback tell a structurally consistent story that neither source presents on its own: the president’s administration has simultaneously relaxed the enforcement mechanisms most likely to constrain memecoin issuers while the president himself operates as an issuer — creating a closed loop in which reduced regulatory risk benefits Trump both as a policymaker and as a direct financial beneficiary. That dual position is what elevates the congressional criticism from partisan noise to a substantive governance question with real capital-allocation implications for any investor operating in the U.S. digital-asset market.
The Implications That Matter
- Retail investor exposure is quantified and severe. Nansen’s aggregate loss figure of $3.8 billion across nearly one million wallets is the first published, analytics-backed number for $TRUMP retail damage — giving regulators, legislators, and plaintiffs’ attorneys a concrete data point to work with.
- The issuer-versus-holder asymmetry is structurally notable. Because token-launch mechanics allow issuers to profit from both buying and selling activity through fee and liquidity structures, Trump’s $636 million gain was not contingent on the token appreciating — a dynamic that distinguishes memecoin issuance from conventional equity investment and complicates standard investor-protection frameworks.
- Deregulation and personal profit now overlap directly. The administration’s simultaneous rollback of crypto oversight and its personal financial stake in crypto tokens creates a conflict-of-interest dynamic that is no longer hypothetical — it is now documented in a presidential financial disclosure and a third-party analytics report.
- Congressional scrutiny is escalating, not stabilizing. Representative Green’s June hearing remarks represent the most direct legislative challenge to date; follow-on legislation or investigative referrals would materially affect the regulatory environment for all U.S.-listed digital assets, not only $TRUMP.
- The precedent question is the longest-range risk. If a sitting head of state can issue and profit from a retail token while controlling the regulatory bodies that oversee such tokens, the structural precedent — regardless of jurisdiction-specific legality — raises governance risk premiums for the entire asset class in institutional portfolio frameworks.
