Trump made money off his meme coin, did its investors?

US President Donald Trump has made $US1.4 billion ($2b) from cryptocurrency in the past 12 months.

$US635 million came from celebration coins royalties and $US236m came from cryptocurrency “token sales”, while the rest of his income came from assorted cryptocurrency wallets.

His celebration coin income is linked to meme coins he launched before returning to office, namely $TRUMP.

But what are meme coins and has anyone other than the Trump family profited? 

Meme coins

Cryptocurrencies are a type of digital asset, not unlike a stock, which can be used as an exchangeable form of money online. 

Much like paper currencies since the gold standard was ended, crypto has value because investors collectively agree it does, in part due to its security and scarcity. 

Meme coins on the other hand are a bit harder to pin down. 

“Meme coins are cryptocurrencies that leverage popular memes or internet trends to create a community-driven, often playful approach to digital currency,” according to crypto broker Blockchain.com.

Meme coins have no inherent value and, unlike Bitcoin, have varying limits of scarcity, rendering the price of any coin vulnerable to the rise and fall in popularity of whatever meme or trend inspired the item. 

As an example Hailey Welch, an American woman, launched her own brand of meme coin after she rose to internet fame in June 2024. 

The $HAWK coin released in December 2024 reached a market capitalisation of $500m before it crashed to $25m by late January. 

Investors have since sued $HAWK.

The $TRUMP coin

Mr Trump’s own meme coin $TRUMP launched days before his second inauguration, also in January 2025. 

At its peak it sold for almost $US75 a coin, but by the end of February its value had plummeted to about $US20 and as of July 1, 2026 its value sits at $US1.65.

This is where the bulk of Mr Trump’s $US635m in royalties and $US236m in token sales are believed to have come from.

In April 2026, Democratic Senator for California Adam Schiff said he and other senators would be investigating a Mar-a-Lago conference which invited the top 297 $TRUMP token holders to attend and offered VIP access to Mr Trump. 

In a statement he said CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which controlled 80 per cent of $TRUMP supply, received trading revenue from all $TRUMP activity. 

“The announcement of the conference ‘set off a quick but brief run-up in the price of the $TRUMP meme coin, which reached $3.08 before tumbling back down,’” the senators highlighted. 

Mr Schiff and his fellow senators asserted “not all” investors of $TRUMP and the similarly branded first ladies meme coin, $MELANIA, benefited from their investment. 

“According to recent reports, $TRUMP, and the First Lady’s meme coin, $MELANIA, “erased an estimated $4.3 billion in retail wealth,” they said.

“Insiders, however, reportedly made a fortune: 45 ‘early-deployment wallets’ earned $1.2 billion off the meme coins, meaning that for every dollar insiders earned, retail investors lost $20.”

World Liberty Financial, another Trump family-linked business which distributed Mr Trump’s royalty and token sale revenue, provided him with an additional $65m in income.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr are involved in its management and it was co-founded by Zach Witkoff, the son of Mr Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

Mr Trump’s $236m in token sale revenue is a marked leap in profits collected compared to Mr Trump’s 2025 disclosure which only reported $US57m from token sales. 

World Liberty Financial launched another cryptocurrency in May, 2025 called USD1. 

USD1 rose to US$1.016 after launch and is now valued at $U0.99. 

It was also used to pay bonuses to UFC fighters performing at the White House in June. 

On July 1, after his disclosure came out, Mr Trump said his wealth was the result of the US stock market’s success. 

“”You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up, everybody’s profiting,” Mr Trump said, according to Reuters.