Nearly 1 million buyers of the Official Trump (TRUMP) meme coin are sitting on a combined $3.81 billion in losses, according to blockchain analytics firm Nansen. The TRUMP meme coin now trades roughly 98% below its January 2025 record high.

The losses look like the final stage of a familiar meme coin cycle. Early buyers captured most of the gains, while later arrivals absorbed the decline that followed the launch hype.

The TRUMP Meme Coin Cycle Played Out in 18 Months

TRUMP launched on January 17, 2025, three days before President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Its price jumped from below $1 to a record $73.43 within two days. That briefly lifted its market value near $15 billion.

Nansen tracked about 1.48 million wallets that bought the token. Just under 500,000 locked in profits worth roughly $4 billion. Most of those gains went to early traders who sold into the first rally.

The buyers who followed became the exit liquidity. Nansen counted 988,905 wallets underwater, about two out of every three, once paper losses are included. The token’s own website had warned that it was not an investment.

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The outcome fit a pattern that analysts flagged for celebrity meme coins from the start. A month later, Argentina saw a faster version. President Javier Milei promoted the LIBRA token in February 2025. Its near $4 billion valuation collapsed within hours, triggering a fraud probe.

The Token Earned for Its Backers Regardless of Price

The design meant the decline barely touched the people behind it. The token’s code routes a share of every trade to creator-linked wallets. Chainalysis traced more than $324 million in such fees to those addresses in the months after launch.

Those fees accrued whether buyers won or lost. Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure later listed a $636 million windfall from the meme coin. The royalties were routed through CIC Digital, the Trump-linked entity behind the token.

Retail buyers had little legal cover. In a February 2025 statement, the Securities and Exchange Commission said meme coins are not securities. That left the market outside its oversight.

Economist Peter Schiff has called the tokens a way to buy access to the president rather than a real investment.

“He’s actually had events at the White House where the top owners of Trump coin are allowed to attend. But it’s really a way to bribe the president. You don’t have to give him money directly, just buy his token, because who else would buy the token? It’s a lousy investment,” he said.

The White House rejects that view. According to a New York Times report, Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said there are no conflicts of interest and that the president acts in the public interest.

TRUMP set an all-time low of $1.50 in early June and has barely recovered. Appetite across the wider meme coin market has stayed subdued. The token now trades close to $1.79, little changed over the past month. Its market value sits near $424 million, ranking around 115th.

Political branding drew far more attention than a typical meme coin. It did not rewrite the math. The TRUMP token traced the same boom-and-bust arc as the speculative coins that came before it.

Source: BeInCrypto