Two days before his inauguration, Donald Trump launched a memecoin. The TRUMP token shot to $75 within 48 hours, drawing in nearly 1.5 million buyers. Eighteen months later, blockchain analytics firm Nansen has counted the cost: of those 1.48 million wallets, 988,905 — roughly two-thirds — are underwater. Combined losses add up to $3.81 billion.
The pattern follows a script familiar from meme markets, but the numbers are unusual. Early buyers who got in below $1 during the first chaotic minutes — before the price surge — hold $4.04 billion in collective gains. Everyone who followed later, buying at or near the peak, has largely been waiting for a recovery that never came. The token now trades around $1.78, down about 97% from its high. Market capitalization has fallen from nearly $15 billion to roughly $425 million.
What sets this case apart is who profited at the top. Trump disclosed $636 million in income from the TRUMP project in his 2026 financial filing. The project wallet collects a share of every trade — on the way up and the way down — so its income is tied to volume, not price. Adding his stake in World Liberty Financial, Trump's total crypto-related income has crossed $1.4 billion. WLFI showed a similar pattern: 85% of the 26,663 secondary buyers tracked by Nansen are in the red, with combined losses of $83 million.
The Nansen report lands at a delicate moment. The CLARITY Act — the bill that would define how the SEC and CFTC split jurisdiction over digital assets — stalled in the Senate after negotiations on ethics provisions collapsed before the July 4 target date. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has proposed banning elected officials from issuing crypto assets. The blockchain data gives that debate a specific number: nearly a million people lost a combined $3.81 billion while the president collected $636 million in fees.
