Investors in Trump Crypto Ventures Are $4.7 Billion Underwater, Watchdog Says

Retail investors who poured money into cryptocurrency projects tied to President Donald Trump have collectively lost at least $4.7 billion, according to an analysis by the watchdog group Public Citizen, even as the president himself reported earning more than $1.4 billion from those same ventures last year.

The losses span the full range of Trump's crypto footprint: the TRUMP memecoin, World Liberty Financial's WLFI token, Trump Media's Bitcoin treasury, and Trump digital trading cards. Public Citizen says the overwhelming majority of the damage remains unrealized, meaning holders are sitting on assets that have plunged in value but have not necessarily been sold.

Where the Losses Are

The largest single source of investor pain is the TRUMP memecoin, launched in January 2025 just days before Trump's inauguration. Blockchain analytics firm Nansen found that roughly 1 million of the 1.6 million retail wallets that traded the token on Solana decentralized exchanges were underwater by a combined $3.2 billion.

World Liberty Financial accounts for at least another $1 billion, according to Public Citizen's calculations. That figure includes a paper loss of approximately $1.04 billion on the treasury of AI Financial, a WLFI-affiliated entity, plus at least $54 million lost by retail buyers on decentralized exchanges. The group noted it excluded centralized-exchange losses that could not be independently observed.