President Donald Trump launched his memecoin $TRUMP in the days before his second inauguration, ushering in a crypto-friendly administration — and a lucrative family business.
The company, which earned Trump hundreds of millions of dollars last year, was part of over $1 billion in total crypto profits.
Most $TRUMP memecoin investors weren’t so lucky.
According to CoinMarketCap, $TRUMP was an instant success, reaching a market cap of $15 billion. It’s now worth just $400 million – a 97% implosion.
But the price of the memecoin is meaningless to Trump. Even as his memecoin investors lost money, Trump reaped the rewards.
Trump attributed his huge wealth gain in 2025 to the stock market.
“You know why I’m profiting because the stock market is going up,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before a flight to North Dakota. “Everyone benefits.”
It’s not him incorrect that the market is boosting Americans’ portfolios: People invested in the S&P 500 in 2025 earned a healthy 17.9% return on their investment.
But that is not the case here. Crypto, not stocks, accounted for the majority of Trump’s net worth increase last year. Very little of this came from direct investment in cryptocurrencies.
Instead, in 2025, Trump derived most of his cryptocurrency from transaction and licensing fees and other revenue related to the coins his company sold to traders. Trump’s companies are the majority owners of the tokens, with Trump Organization subsidiaries CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC controlling 80% of the coin supply.
In a CNBC interview, Trump defended his crypto winnings by saying he followed the law by allowing his adult children to oversee his personal finances while he was in office.
“I’m a really good businessman, I’ve made money, I’ve made a tremendous amount of money, more than I ever thought I would,” Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen. “And I let people invest it, I don’t even talk to them – I don’t even know who they are, but it’s given to big companies… my son Eric takes care of it, I don’t talk to him about things like that. I think I would be allowed, I’m not sure.” even what the status is, but I don’t know.”
Pressed on whether he was aware of his massive crypto holdings, Trump told CNBC: “No, but that was just something I could know about it, right? I mean, there’s nothing illegal. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Trump will benefit from the market value of his memecoin. But regardless of whether $TRUMP rose or fell, he earned transaction fees every time $TRUMP was bought or sold.
With his Memecoin and other cryptocurrency tokens tied to World Liberty Financial LLC – a company run in part by his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. – Trump netted more than $526 million from token sales.
Memecoins tend to rise and then fall in price. This is because, unlike typical cryptocurrencies, memecoins have no intrinsic value. These are extremely risky and speculative assets that are traded on an exchange but are susceptible to scams called “rug pulls.”
In the blink of an eye, memecoin creators put a coin on the market, wait for the price to rise, and then cash out their earnings.
$TRUMP and its associated $MELANIA advertised themselves as carpet-resistant, ensuring that the president and first lady couldn’t release their winnings all at once – they had to stagger sales over a three-year period.
But just because a memecoin isn’t a scam doesn’t mean it’s a smart investment. So why should people buy $TRUMP?
Investors in $TRUMP may have been lured in because they wanted to support the president. They may have done it for novelty reasons or because they believed it would be lucrative.
But some wealthy investors have poured money into the memecoin to gain access to Trump.
Last May, Trump hosted a black-tie dinner as a special reward for the top 220 $TRUMP holders. Participants invested millions of dollars in its crypto token. The 25 largest investors received access to a small VIP reception with the President.
Therefore, $TRUMP memecoin may have been a bad investment last year. But some of his investors still won something. Trump certainly did.
CNN’s DJ Judd contributed reporting.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/02/business/trump-memecoin-crypto-gains
