Crypto ventures linked to U.S. President Donald Trump and his family left investors at least an estimated $4.7 billion underwater while generating roughly $1.4 billion in crypto-related income for Trump during 2025, according to a report from Public Citizen.
The watchdog examined losses connected to five Trump-linked products: the Official Trump memecoin, World Liberty Financial’s WLFI governance token, the USD1 stablecoin, Trump Digital Trading Cards and Trump Media’s digital-asset treasury. The majority of the estimated losses came from the TRUMP token, followed by WLFI and the cryptocurrency exposure held by Trump Media.
Public Citizen’s figures include both realized and unrealized losses, meaning the totals could change if holders sell, prices recover or digital assets decline further. The report also emphasizes that not all of the estimated losses represent money that simply disappeared. In the case of TRUMP, much of the value appears to have shifted from later buyers toward a relatively small group of wallets that entered earlier and captured most of the profits.
TRUMP Memecoin Accounts for Most of the Estimated Losses
Public Citizen estimated that investors in the Official Trump memecoin were underwater by a combined $3.2 billion.
The token launched on Jan. 17, 2025, three days before Trump returned to the White House. Its price initially traded below $1 before surging to an all-time high of $73.43 as demand accelerated. Most of that gain was later erased.
Citing blockchain intelligence firm Nansen, Public Citizen said approximately 1 million retail wallets, or about 65% of the wallets examined, were underwater by a combined $3.2 billion. Only roughly $400 million of that total represented realized losses from investors who had already sold.
The distribution of profits was highly concentrated. According to the analysis, the top 1% of profitable wallets captured approximately $2.7 billion, equivalent to around 80% of all gains. Wallets that entered during the first two days of trading collected almost 90% of total profits.
That pattern suggests that timing played an unusually important role in investor outcomes. Buyers who entered early captured most of the upside, while many participants who arrived later were left holding tokens worth substantially less than their purchase prices.
A separate Nansen analysis reported earlier by crypto.news placed realized and paper losses at $3.81 billion across nearly 989,000 wallets through the end of June. The difference between that figure and Public Citizen’s $3.2 billion estimate reflects different wallet filters and measurement dates.
Trump Earned Hundreds of Millions From the Same Token
While many TRUMP investors absorbed losses, Public Citizen estimated that Trump received approximately $635 million in licensing fees tied to the memecoin during 2025.
Trump did not participate in the project as an ordinary buyer. CIC Digital LLC, a company owned by Trump, licensed his name and branding to the token venture.
Two companies associated with the project retained 80% of TRUMP’s total one billion-token supply, with those holdings scheduled to enter circulation over three years. Public Citizen also said the businesses receive revenue linked to trading activity, meaning they can generate fees even when the token’s market price declines.
This distinction is central to the watchdog’s analysis. Investor performance depends heavily on the market price of the token, while licensing and trading-related revenue can continue independently of whether later buyers are profitable.
WLFI Added at Least $1 Billion in Investor Losses
World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token represented the second-largest component of Public Citizen’s estimate.
The organization calculated that WLFI holders were underwater by at least $1 billion. The token reached a record price of $0.3313 on Sept. 1, 2025, but Public Citizen valued it at $0.05744 while preparing its report. Investors who purchased near the peak were therefore down by as much as 83%.
AI Financial Corporation, formerly ALT5 Sigma, accounted for most of the estimated WLFI loss. The Nasdaq-listed company bought 7.28 billion WLFI tokens for approximately $1.46 billion in August 2025. By the end of June 2026, it valued that position at about $421 million, implying a paper loss of roughly $1.04 billion.
Nansen also examined 31,000 likely retail wallets that bought WLFI through decentralized exchanges on Ethereum. As of Aug. 3, around 25,000, or 82%, were underwater. Losing wallets were down approximately $54 million, compared with $24 million in gains among profitable wallets.
Public Citizen described its $1 billion figure as a minimum because centralized exchange activity could not be included due to the lack of public account-level data.
World Liberty Financial Was Also a Major Source of Trump Income
Public Citizen estimated that Trump received $527 million from WLFI token sales in 2025, after earning roughly $30 million during the first three months of the project in 2024. That brought his estimated proceeds from the governance token to $557 million.
An additional equity transaction added $65.6 million, according to the organization.
Company documents, court records and Trump’s financial disclosure indicate that Trump owns 70% of an entity holding a 38.25% equity stake in World Liberty. That entity also receives 75% of WLFI token-sale proceeds after certain deductions.
The result is a major difference between the economics of the project for Trump and for public-market buyers. Trump’s income came largely from token-sale distributions and equity-related arrangements, while outside investors remained exposed to the market price of WLFI.
Trump Media and NFTs Added to the Loss Estimate
Public Citizen attributed another estimated $450 million in losses to Trump Media shareholders through the company’s digital-asset treasury.
The organization included this exposure because investors bought shares in a publicly traded U.S. company that later allocated corporate funds to cryptocurrencies. The estimate therefore reflects the impact of those digital-asset holdings on shareholder value rather than direct purchases of a Trump-branded token.
Trump Digital Trading Cards contributed at least another $9.3 million to the estimated investor losses.
Public Citizen said Trump earned at least $7.2 million in licensing fees and secondary-market royalties connected to four NFT collections. Approximately 175,000 cards were issued. Three collections included in the watchdog’s calculation originally generated $12.3 million in sales but carried a combined market value of about $3 million when assessed.
USD1, World Liberty’s stablecoin, did not receive a major loss estimate because it is designed to maintain a value of $1 and had not experienced a sustained break from that peg.
Financial Disclosure Showed More Than $1 Billion in Crypto Income
Trump’s annual financial disclosure filed in June 2026 reported more than $1 billion in crypto-related income for 2025, with some calculations placing the total near $1.4 billion.
The income came mainly from TRUMP licensing, World Liberty token distributions, an equity sale and revenue associated with USD1.
The disclosure also showed that income and current asset holdings should not be treated as the same thing. Licensing payments and token-sale proceeds represent revenue received during the reporting period, while holdings reflect assets still owned when the disclosure was prepared.
Trump reported a cold-wallet Bitcoin position valued at more than $50 million, a smaller Ethereum position and approximately $1.8 million in ether staking rewards. He also reported continued exposure to WLFI and USD1, although federal ethics disclosures often provide asset values in ranges rather than exact balances.
Public Citizen Pushes for New Ethics Rules in the CLARITY Act
Public Citizen used its findings to renew calls for the CLARITY Act to include requirements forcing a sitting president and immediate family members to divest from crypto ventures.
The watchdog argued that federal digital-asset policy and the president’s private financial interests cannot be treated as separate issues.
The CLARITY Act would create federal categories for digital assets and divide oversight responsibilities between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It also includes provisions covering registration, custody, disclosure and customer assets.
Ethics restrictions remain one of the disputed areas in Senate negotiations, alongside decentralized finance rules and rewards paid on stablecoin balances.
Democratic lawmakers have pushed for restrictions on crypto holdings by elected officials, while the White House has rejected claims that Trump’s business interests affect his policy decisions.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly has also denied that Trump’s business ventures create an ethics conflict, saying neither the president nor his family has engaged in conflicts of interest and maintaining that Trump does not participate in the management of his companies.
Lawmakers Are Also Scrutinizing the TRUMP Token
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal asked the SEC in August to investigate whether the TRUMP token facilitated fraud or improper enrichment after its price fell approximately 98% from its peak.
Their request did not establish that securities fraud had occurred. The SEC would first need to determine whether federal securities laws apply to the token before pursuing such a case.
The political debate is unfolding as Trump continues to push Congress to advance crypto legislation. On Aug. 19, he met with crypto executives and federal regulators at the White House and urged lawmakers to approve what he described as a “fair version” of the legislation.
Attendees included executives from Coinbase, Robinhood, Kraken, Ripple and other digital-asset companies.
The Senate has scheduled a procedural vote for Sept. 15 at 2:15 p.m. Eastern. Sixty senators must support cloture to begin consideration of the bill. Even if that vote succeeds, the legislation would still face amendments, a final Senate vote and reconciliation with the House-approved version.
Conclusion
Public Citizen’s report presents a stark contrast between the financial outcomes of Trump-linked crypto investors and the income generated for Trump through licensing, token sales and related arrangements.
The watchdog estimates that investors across TRUMP, WLFI, Trump Media and NFT products were at least $4.7 billion underwater, while Trump generated approximately $1.4 billion in crypto-related income during 2025.
The figures remain estimates and include unrealized losses, meaning they can change with market prices. But the report has intensified an already active debate over whether a sitting president should be permitted to maintain significant financial exposure to an industry directly affected by federal policy.
Final Takeaway
The central issue is not simply that several Trump-linked crypto assets lost value. It is that the financial structure of these ventures allowed substantial licensing and token-related income to flow to Trump even while many outside buyers suffered large losses. Public Citizen is now using that divergence to push for stricter presidential divestment rules as Congress moves closer to a key vote on the CLARITY Act.
