{"id":1262,"date":"2026-07-02T03:02:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T03:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/?p=1262"},"modified":"2026-07-02T03:02:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T03:02:53","slug":"trump-rakes-in-the-big-dollars-while-his-followers-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/trump-rakes-in-the-big-dollars-while-his-followers-lose\/","title":{"rendered":"TRUMP RAKES IN THE BIG DOLLARS, WHILE HIS FOLLOWERS LOSE!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trump Made $1 Billion on Crypto Deals While His Fans Lost a Fortune<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

Roughly two-thirds of investors in the president\u2019s memecoin are currently in the red<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Donald<\/picture><\/figure>\n

Donald Trump speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville.<\/span> Liam Kennedy for WSJ<\/span><\/div>\n

Morten Christensen made a big bet on digital tokens sold by the Trump family\u2019s World Liberty Financial last year, hoping that a surge in value might be enough to help him retire.<\/p>\n

Instead, the value of those tokens tanked. While Christensen and many like him lost big, the president made a fortune, netting $800 million from that crypto project, according to a financial disclosure<\/a> he filed this week.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn crypto, people say a game is a game,\u201d the digital-asset entrepreneur said. \u201cHe played a better game than I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has been clear for some time that President Trump\u2019s forays into the crypto world have been lucrative, but the stunning disclosure that those ventures earned him some $1.4 billion last year underscored the different reality the president is living in from many of the investors who have embraced digital assets alongside him.<\/p>\n

The president raked in cash by issuing new assets\u2014World Liberty tokens and memecoins. But those who bought them at high prices had to suffer as their value went belly up, part of a wider crash in crypto. Political followers and crypto true believers who bought into the Trump brand were left holding the bag. A crypto summer for the president was a crypto winter for them.<\/p>\n

Roughly two-thirds of investors in Trump\u2019s memecoin are currently in the red, according to crypto data provider Nansen, which tracks 1.48 million crypto wallets that bought the token since its January 2025 launch. Many fans spent a few thousand on Trump coins while the biggest spenders shelled out millions for the token. Nansen\u2019s analysis of 26,663 wallets shows that 85% of World Liberty\u2019s $WLFI token buyers in the secondary market are underwater.<\/p>\n

Trump, who in 2021 described bitcoin as a \u201cscam\u201d threatening the U.S. dollar, now leads a White House that has pledged to make America the \u201ccrypto capital of the world.\u201d As his administration lightened regulation of the notoriously boom-and-bust sector, the Trump family\u2019s sprawling crypto business<\/a> reached into nearly every corner of the industry, drawing conflict-of-interest concerns from ethics watchdogs. Bitcoin prices also plunged.<\/p>\n

That has frustrated some of the president\u2019s most ardent supporters and crypto industry allies alike. On Trump Media-owned Truth Social, where many users discuss Trump-linked investments alongside rocket-ship emojis, some individuals on Wednesday turned cynical.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy investment is trash now,\u201d one user said of WLF tokens.<\/p>\n

But in the crypto market, where memecoins can quickly evaporate in value and \u201crug pulls\u201d are a constant threat, other investors are resigned to their losses.<\/p>\n

Vincent Deriu, a 28-year-old consultant and crypto enthusiast in New York, said he initially bought the $TRUMP token at launch and accumulated more to secure a spot at the inaugural memecoin dinner<\/a>. After selling roughly half of them toward the end of 2025, he still owns more than 8,000 coins.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one forced anyone to go and invest in any of these tokens. People purchased it at their own risk,\u201d said Deriu. \u201cMore politicians should take note, and they should be more transparent about how they\u2019re making money in their business ventures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days before his inauguration, Trump launched his memecoin, $TRUMP, which surged to a peak market capitalization of nearly $15 billion before plunging 97% to about $400 million today. In September 2024, Trump and his sons helped launch World Liberty Financial, the family\u2019s flagship crypto venture.<\/p>\n

That project subsequently released a dollar-pegged stablecoin shortly before Trump signed the Genius Act into law, establishing a regulatory framework for such dollar-pegged tokens.<\/p>\n

White House officials say those actions don\u2019t constitute conflicts of interest. \u201cNeither the President nor his family has ever engaged\u2014or will ever engage\u2014in conflicts of interest,\u201d White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. \u201cAll actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The surge in Trump\u2019s crypto earnings last year came in addition to booming income<\/a> from his family\u2019s traditional hotel business and golf courses, as well as swelling holdings in stocks such as Nvidia and Meta, disclosures show.<\/p>\n

Trump played down the windfall, attributing his earnings to a stock market that has repeatedly notched records in recent months. \u201cYou know why I\u2019m profiting? Because the stock market is going up,\u201d he told reporters Wednesday. \u201cWe\u2019re all profiting. I\u2019m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.\u201d<\/p>\n

The disclosure could complicate already turbulent negotiations over legislation that would establish rules regulating various cryptocurrencies, a priority for many crypto companies that have spent millions of dollars on lobbying.<\/p>\n

Many Democrats and some Republicans are insisting that the bill include provisions barring the president and elected officials from profiting from crypto activities that would benefit from the regulations they oversee\u2014a sticking point that could become more intractable following the disclosure.<\/p>\n

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R., Wyo.), a sponsor of the bill who is negotiating with the White House and Democrats on the ethics language, said the legislation will include strong provisions and is the best way to address the concerns. The bill would need some Democratic support to get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate. It already has passed the House.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat needs to be resolved, or else I don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to have the votes,\u201d Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), one of the Democrats who has indicated he would support the bill if the ethics provision is included, said after the legislation was approved by the Senate Banking Committee in mid-May. Gallego said Tuesday on X that Trump is making billions off the presidency while raising costs for working people.<\/p>\n

Christensen, the founder of airdropalert.com and owner of a \u201csubstantial sum\u201d of WLFI tokens, also bought $TRUMP memecoin to secure invitations to Trump\u2019s memecoin events. While he was surprised by Trump\u2019s windfall last year, he harbored no bitterness toward the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like it was a great monetization vehicle for him and his family, and he\u2019s taking care of his own,\u201d Christensen said.<\/p>\n

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Trump Money<\/h3>\n
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Read WSJ’s in-depth financial coverage of President Trump<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Crypto Crypto Bets and Real Estate Deals: Inside Trump\u2019s $2 Billion Year<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
\"The The Trump Family Business Empire Is Growing. We Mapped It Out.<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
\"One One Generation Runs the Country. The Next Cashed In on Crypto.<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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Trump Made $1 Billion on Crypto Deals While His Fans Lost a Fortune Roughly two-thirds of investors in the president\u2019s memecoin are currently in the red Donald Trump speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville. Liam Kennedy for WSJ Morten Christensen made a big bet on digital tokens sold by the Trump family\u2019s World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1263,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions\/1263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}