A US consumer rights organization Public Citizen released a report stating that multiple crypto businesses associated with the Trump family have resulted in investors incurring a total loss of at least $4.7 billion, while these projects generated approximately $1.4 billion in revenue for Trump during the same period in 2025. The focus of the controversy is not only on the profitability of these projects but also on whether there is an overlapping impact between the president's personal interests and digital asset legislation.
The floating loss mainly comes from TRUMP and WLFI.
This report summarizes five categories of products associated with Trump, including the Official Trump meme coin, the WLFI governance token of World Liberty Financial, the USD1 stablecoin, Trump's digital transaction cards, and the digital asset reserves of Trump Media.
Among them, the TRUMP meme coin is the biggest source of losses. Public Citizen estimates that investors who bought this token have suffered a total floating loss of about $3.2 billion. WLFI holders have lost at least about $1 billion, and Trump Media shareholders have incurred a book loss of about $450 million due to their digital asset reserves. The digital trading card portion is accounted for as a loss of about $9.3 million.
- TRUMP Investors suffer approximately $3.2 billion in floating losses
- WLFI holders suffered losses of at least approximately $1 billion
- Trump Media Related losses amount to approximately $450 million.
The report does not list USD1 as the main source of losses, as this stablecoin is designed to be pegged to 1 US dollar and has not experienced persistent de-pegging. Public Citizen indicates that the aforementioned figures include both realized and unrealized losses; therefore, the total amount will still adjust with changes in price.
Early holders reap concentrated profits
The report states that the trading of TRUMP tokens is more like later buyers transferring wealth to early participants, rather than all the value disappearing out of nowhere. According to the Nansen data cited, approximately 1 million retail wallets are in a loss-making state, accounting for 65% of the sample wallets.
At the same time, profits are highly concentrated. The top 1% of wallets, which generate the most money, earned a total of about $2.7 billion, accounting for approximately 80% of all profits; wallets that entered the market two days before the token was launched took nearly 90% of the profits. TRUMP was launched on January 17, 2025, and its price once rose from less than $1 to a high of $73.43, before then losing most of that gain.
The controversy over Trump's income and the bill has intensified simultaneously.
While investors are bearing losses, Public Citizen estimates that Trump will earn approximately $635 million in 2025 alone from licensing fees related to the TRUMP meme coin. The report states that Trump's company, CIC Digital LLC, mainly participates in projects through licensing brands, rather than purchasing tokens as an ordinary investor.
World Liberty Financial is also another major source of income. Public Citizen estimates that Trump earned approximately $527 million from the sale of WLFI tokens in 2025, plus about $30 million from early sales of the project in 2024, for a total income of around $557 million. There is also another equity transaction that was recorded as earnings of about $65.6 million.
Financial disclosure documents also show that Trump declared holding Bitcoin in cold wallets worth over $50 million, a smaller position in Ethereum, as well as approximately $1.8 million in Ethereum staking rewards. He continues to hold exposures related to WLFI and USD1.
Public Citizen subsequently called on Congress to amend CLARITY Act, demanding that the current president and his immediate family members divest themselves of their interests in the cryptocurrency industry. A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, denied that Trump's business interests posed any ethical issues and stated that the president himself does not participate in the management of his companies. Previously, senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal had already requested the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether TRUMP tokens involved fraud or improper profit-taking.
