TrumpMarkets
|8 min ReadCrypto crash hits Trump world and its loyal followers
Maya Chen
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
The crypto bust is no longer just a chart on a screen. It is starting to chew into the Trump family’s fortune and the wallets of the people who followed them into digital assets. A Trump-branded memecoin has dropped about a quarter since late summer. Eric Trump’s stake in a Bitcoin mining venture has lost roughly half of its peak value. The family’s net worth has slipped to about 7.7 billion in early September, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as a once-soaring crypto portfolio cools.
The broader backdrop is brutal. A selloff across digital assets has erased more than $1 trillion of market value. Trump-linked projects sit right in the middle of that storm. Everyday investors can now buy Trump-themed tokens, shares in his media company, and stock in his mining venture. Many of them are learning that these structures often protect the insiders far better than the fans.
Volatility hurts followers while the family keeps a buffer
Crypto played a big role in reshaping the family’s wealth. Now the same volatility is biting back. Across Trump-linked assets, the pattern is similar. Tokens and stocks fall hard, yet the family often still earns from fees, token sales, or complex deal terms.
A Trump-branded memecoin that launched over inauguration weekend is a clear example. Anyone who bought at the peak would have seen almost the entire value of that bet vanish by this month. The coin has since lost roughly another 25 percent, even as more insider tokens unlock.
Eric Trump, the president’s second-born son, is not backing down. He continues to talk like a crypto diehard.
“What a great buying opportunity,” he said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “People who buy dips and embrace volatility will be the ultimate winners. I have never been more bullish on the future of cryptocurrency and the modernization of the financial system.”
Bitcoin itself has lived through many plunges and recoveries since 2009. The Trumps, however, have an extra cushion that normal traders do not. Through ventures like World Liberty Financial, they do not just hold tokens. They help create them and share in the proceeds from selling them, regardless of where prices trade.
“Retail investors can only speculate,” said Jim Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University. “The Trumps can not only speculate, but they can create tokens, sell them and make money off those transactions.”
Trump Media’s crypto pivot deepens the slide
One of the biggest visible hits is at Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., the parent of Truth Social. Its shares have fallen about 66 percent over the past year and touched a record low in recent days. The company, still unprofitable, decided to lean into crypto at exactly the wrong moment.
Trump Media spent roughly 115,000. With Bitcoin now trading lower, that position shows an unrealized loss of about 25 percent.
The firm also began hoarding CRO, a token issued by Singapore-based exchange Crypto.com. At the end of September, its CRO holdings were worth around $147 million. Since then, CRO has lost roughly half its value.
Trump Media is pushing deeper with Crypto.com. The two are developing a prediction market called Truth Predict where users can bet on sports and politics. It is an aggressive move into the risk complex at a time when the stock is already under pressure.
For the president, who is the company’s largest shareholder through a stake held in a trust run by Donald Trump Jr., the paper loss tied to Trump Media comes to about $800 million since early September.
World Liberty Financial’s paper billions shrink
The centerpiece of the family’s crypto expansion is World Liberty Financial, a platform they co-founded that issues its own token, WLFI. That token has slumped from 26 cents in early September to around 15 cents.
At the peak, the Trump family’s store of WLFI tokens had a notional value close to 3.15 billion. Those holdings are not included in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, because the coins are locked and cannot be traded.
In August, World Liberty sold some tokens to a small public company called Alt5 Sigma Corp. Timing was excellent. World Liberty received about $750 million in cash and an equity stake. Investors in Alt5 have had the opposite experience. Since the deal was announced, Alt5 shares have dropped about 75 percent.
The Trump family’s stake in Alt5, held through World Liberty, has lost roughly 500 million from the Alt5 transaction alone, on top of roughly $400 million from earlier WLFI sales.
“Crypto is here to stay,” a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial said in a statement. “World Liberty Financial has long-term conviction in the rapidly maturing technologies underpinning digital assets, which we believe will radically improve financial services.”
American Bitcoin stake gets cut in half
Not long after the inauguration, the Trumps entered another crypto venture. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. teamed up with Hut 8 Corp. on a Bitcoin mining company called American Bitcoin Corp. Hut 8 supplied its mining equipment in exchange for a majority stake in the new firm. The project raised about $220 million.
Eric Trump owns roughly 7.5 percent of American Bitcoin. Donald Trump Jr. holds a smaller, undisclosed stake. When ABTC shares peaked at 630 million. The stock has since more than halved, wiping out more than $300 million of that value. The position is still a major win compared with where it started, but the speed of the reversal shows how violent the cycle has become.
Investors who bought ABTC around the time it started trading publicly now sit on losses of about 45 percent. An American Bitcoin spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Memecoin drawdown hits fans while insider tokens unlock
Trump’s personal memecoin has been a roller coaster since it was unveiled on the weekend of the presidential inauguration. By the time autumn arrived, it had already crashed from its highs. From the end of August, it has fallen another 25 percent or so.
Gauntlet, a risk modeling firm, tracked wallets tied to the creation of the coin. A few months after launch, those wallets held nearly 17 million tokens and had sent another 17 million to crypto exchanges. Around 90 million more tokens vested in July. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index credits the Trumps with about 40 percent of the total supply, based on their stake in World Liberty Financial.
At current prices, the family’s coins are worth about 117 million since late August. The headline number is a loss. The deeper story is more nuanced.
Because of the vesting schedule, nearly 90 million extra Trump tokens have been unlocked for insiders since July, according to crypto research firm Messari. Bloomberg’s wealth index credits about 40 percent of those tokens to the Trumps. The new coins are worth roughly $220 million. That means the overall value of the family’s stake has actually risen, as the volume of unlocked tokens more than offset the price decline.
For retail traders, there is no such cushion. They buy in the open market and eat the volatility. For the Trump family, the same crash that is eroding market prices is, in several cases, still delivering large cash payouts, paper gains, or both. The gap between how insiders and followers experience this crypto winter has rarely been clearer.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.