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.
Summary
President Trump’s crypto ventures have operated less like legitimate long-term investments and more like a system designed to funnel money from ordinary supporters toward insiders, sophisticated traders, and Trump himself. According to blockchain analysis from the crypto firm Nansen, nearly one million buyers of the $TRUMP memecoin collectively lost about $3.8 billion, while a much smaller group of early or highly sophisticated traders captured roughly $4 billion in profits. The structure heavily favored insiders from the beginning: Trump and his affiliated entities reportedly earned money not only when the coin rose, but whenever it was traded at all.
The token appears to have been marketed using Trump’s political identity and public influence rather than any real underlying economic value. Memecoins generally have no productive business model, no cash flow, and no ownership rights; their value depends largely on hype and speculation. Trump repeatedly promoted the token directly to supporters on social media, encouraging them to “join” the community and buy in, even as the structure of the market strongly advantaged early entrants and automated professional traders.
One of the most troubling themes in the piece is the asymmetry between ordinary retail buyers and sophisticated crypto operators. Experienced traders using bots and automated systems were able to buy extremely early, ride the initial surge, and then sell into the enthusiasm of slower-moving retail investors. That dynamic is common in speculative crypto launches, but the article suggests Trump’s celebrity and political authority amplified the effect dramatically. In practice, many ordinary supporters appear to have functioned as the “exit liquidity” for earlier, more sophisticated participants.
The article also raises broader ethical concerns because Trump is not merely a private businessman — he is president. While his administration has simultaneously reduced crypto enforcement and oversight, Trump and his family have expanded deeper into crypto ventures that generate enormous personal wealth. Critics quoted in the article argue this creates an extraordinary conflict of interest: a president shaping the regulatory environment of an industry while personally profiting from speculative products sold to the public.
Another important point is that Trump’s financial success appears largely disconnected from whether investors themselves succeeded. Trump’s entities collected fees and proceeds regardless of whether the token ultimately collapsed. In other words, the economic incentives were not aligned between promoter and buyer. The token could fall 90% or more — as it largely did — while the insiders behind it still walked away extremely wealthy.
Rather than a traditional investment backed by productive assets or business operations, the coin functioned more like a politically branded speculative vehicle whose primary value came from attention, loyalty, and momentum. Many retail investors confused political allegiance with sound investing — and paid heavily for it.
