Trump’s Family Made $2.3 Billion in Crypto and Investors Lost Almost Exactly That

The number is almost too clean to be real. A Reuters investigation found that President Trump’s family made roughly $2.3 billion from four crypto ventures while putting up little to no capital of their own, and that outside investors lost an almost identical $2.3 billion in the same projects. More than a million buyers absorbed those losses.

For scale, the family’s crypto ventures out-earned Coinbase, which posted about $2.1 billion in income over the same stretch. Asked about it in a July 2 CNBC interview, Trump said he wasn’t even aware of the windfall:

“There’s nothing illegal, there’s nothing wrong with it.” — Donald Trump, President of the United States

How the Trump Family Risked Almost Nothing

The structure is the whole story. Across the two Nasdaq-listed ventures, ALT5 Sigma, now AI Financial Corp., and American Bitcoin, Reuters found the family acquired its shares at no monetary cost. The TRUMP memecoin and World Liberty Financial launched on similarly thin outlays. It was an asymmetric bet: minimal downside for the insiders, maximum exposure for everyone who bought in.

World Liberty Financial: $1.4 Billion In, Mostly Out to the Trumps

World Liberty Financial raised $1.4 billion selling 30 billion governance tokens, with the family entitled to 75% of sale proceeds and holding a 60% stake. One buyer, ALT5 Sigma, purchased $717 million in WLFI tokens and routed more than $500 million to the family, then watched its own stock later collapse more than 90% and warn it might not survive the year.

Reuters found the family’s take was likely higher, citing 3 billion tokens that vanished from disclosures and were probably sold quietly. Duke finance professor Campbell Harvey reviewed the finding:

“It appears that the insiders were dumping.” — Campbell Harvey, professor of finance, Duke University

World Liberty pushed back, with a spokesman saying the company “does not validate third-party methodologies for valuing governance tokens.”

The Memecoin and the Retail Wreckage

Blockchain data indicates the TRUMP memecoin generated roughly $1.2 billion in revenue, about $616 million of it flowing to the family. Retail didn’t fare as well. The token peaked at $75.35 in January 2025 and cratered, leaving early buyers with more than $700 million in losses, while WLFI holders sit on roughly $674 million more, much of it locked and now near worthless.

The obvious question is the conflict of interest, since Trump shapes US crypto policy while his family profits from crypto ventures. The White House denies any impropriety, saying all administration actions are taken in the best interest of the American people, and Trump framed the whole sector as a national race the US has to win or cede to China.

Meanwhile, the Chain It Ran On Is Having a Better Week

Here’s a footnote worth pulling forward. The TRUMP memecoin lives on Solana, and while that token bled out, SOL itself is quietly ripping. Solana trades near $81 on July 3, up roughly 20% over the past week, the seventh-largest crypto by market cap and still about 72% below its January 2025 record near $294.

The fundamentals are firming. Spot Solana ETFs from Bitwise and Fidelity have pushed total assets past $1 billion, Morgan Stanley has filed for its own Solana trust, and the network just switched on stake-weighted on-chain governance. Technically, SOL is pressing the $77 to $80 resistance that has capped it for weeks, with $73 as support. A clean close above $80 opens a path some analysts peg toward $120 to $130. Lose $73 and the low $50s come back into view.

So the split screen is the real story. One Solana-based token minted a fortune for its founders and losses for everyone else, while the chain underneath it stages a comeback. Which one tells you more about where crypto sits in July 2026: the memecoin, or the machine?