Buyers of the TRUMP memecoin have lost a combined $3.81 billion a year and a half after the token's launch. That is according to data from analytics firm Nansen, shared with CoinDesk on July 4.
The US president's token has dropped 96% from its peak, while 85% of secondary-market wallets holding WLFI, the token tied to the Trump family, are underwater. Both cases show how unevenly gains and losses fell among buyers of these assets.
The numbers became public thanks to the annual financial disclosure every US president must file. It's a rare instance where the performance of a private crypto project tied to a sitting head of state gets checked by an independent analytics firm rather than the project's own press releases.
988,905 Wallets Underwater
Of the 1.48 million wallets that bought TRUMP since its January 2025 launch, 988,905 are now sitting on losses. That's nearly two-thirds of all buyers. Their combined losses reached $3.81 billion.
The remaining 492,285 wallets are in profit, with combined gains of $4.04 billion. Those gains are concentrated among buyers who bought the token in the first hours after launch, when it traded under $1. Two days later, the token climbed to nearly $75.
The gap between the two groups is huge. Minutes decided who walked away with a fortune and who got stuck holding the token for years.
Why the Net Result Looks Modest
Add up all 1.48 million wallets together, and the gap between profit and loss narrows to roughly $236 million in buyers' favor. That figure looks tiny next to the billions in gains and losses within each group.
The explanation is simple. A small share of early buyers captured most of the profit. Most later investors bought at higher prices and locked in losses once the market turned down.
Total trading volume in the token since launch has hit $71 billion, 167 times the current $425 million market cap. That gap between volume and market cap points to heavy churn. Most holders didn't keep the coin long, and many sold soon after buying.
For context, TRUMP's market cap peaked at nearly $15 billion. Over a year and a half, the token has shed more than 97% of that value, even though it still trades on several major exchanges.
World Liberty Financial and a Second Round of Losses for the Trump Family
World Liberty Financial, the crypto company in which the Trump family holds a stake, sold its WLFI token through an ICO priced at $0.015 in the first round and $0.05 for the public round. The token stayed non-transferable between wallets until September 1, 2025.
Once secondary trading opened, the price started at $0.29 and climbed to $0.33. Of the 26,663 wallets Nansen tracks on the secondary market, 22,715 are underwater, about 85% of those tracked. Their combined losses total $83 million, while the rest are up just $23 million.
Even more telling, 241,651 wallets that bought WLFI during the ICO itself, at $0.015 to $0.05, aren't counted in the loss figures at all. At the current price of $0.056, even first-round ICO buyers remain roughly three times up, while later secondary-market buyers are mostly underwater.
In other words, the ICO's lockup structure protected WLFI's early investors better than TRUMP's did, since TRUMP started trading immediately with no restrictions.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Are Down Too
The TRUMP and WLFI declines coincided with a broader crypto market slide. Since the record above $126,000 set last October, Bitcoin has lost roughly half its value. The first half of 2026 has been a rough stretch for the sector.
Ethereum is in a similar spot, trading several times below its historical highs. When core market assets shed double-digit percentages, less liquid tokens like memecoins tend to fall even harder.
A large share of the TRUMP and WLFI decline traces back to the broader bear market, not just reputational risks tied to the Trump family.
That said, the market has shown signs of recovery in recent days. Bitcoin climbed back above $63,000, and US bitcoin ETFs logged $222 million in net inflows for the first time in ten trading days. For tokens like TRUMP and WLFI, that shift in mood hasn't yet made up for the losses piled up over six months of decline.
What It Means for the Memecoin Market
The TRUMP and WLFI story repeats a pattern common to memecoins. Most of the reward goes to whoever got in first, while the biggest risk falls on buyers who joined later. The political branding just sped that process up without changing its nature.
A few facts are worth keeping in mind before judging what comes next for assets like these.
- Profit concentration: fewer than a third of wallets hold TRUMP's entire positive result.
- More than 722,000 wallets still hold the token, with positions currently worth $465 million combined.
- Conflict of interest: Trump told CNBC he wasn't aware of the full scope of his crypto holdings and had handed day-to-day control of his businesses to his sons before taking office.
- A further drop in Bitcoin and Ethereum could add pressure to less liquid tokens, WLFI included.
- According to the financial disclosure, the president's total crypto income for 2025 topped $1.4 billion, with $636 million of that tied directly to TRUMP payouts.
The Bottom Line
Over a year and a half, TRUMP went from a few cents to nearly $75 and back down to $1.79. $71 billion in total trading volume didn't save most late buyers from losses, and the profit landed with a narrow group who got there first.
WLFI looks a bit sturdier for now, thanks to its early lockup. Still, 85% of wallets underwater on the secondary market show that this project isn't immune to the same dynamic either.
At Kurslog, we regularly see how crypto exchange rates react to news on this scale. A single token's decline rarely moves the BTC or ETH rate against the hryvnia directly, but it adds to broader market volatility worth factoring in when timing an exchange. While Bitcoin and Ethereum search for a bottom after last fall's crash, the fate of Trump-linked tokens will hinge mostly on general market sentiment, not on individual headlines about the president's family.
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