The Trump family fortune has plummeted by a billion dollars in just a few months due to losses in the volatile cryptocurrency market.
Analysis by Bloomberg News found that President Donald Trump and his family’s venture into meme coins and cryptocurrency has dragged their collective wealth down from an estimated $7.7 billion in early September to $6.7 billion.
This includes a Trump-branded memecoin losing around one quarter of its value since August, the president’s son Eric’s Bitcoin mining venture shedding roughly half its value from its peak, and shares in Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG)—which owns Truth Social—falling to all-time lows after the company invested heavily in crypto.
Not only have the Trumps lost heavily in their crypto ventures, but anyone who hoped to get rich by investing in the Trump name is also hemorrhaging money. Investors who bought Trump’s meme coin at its peak in January, for example, would have lost almost the entire value of their investment by November.
The cost of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial token has plunged from 26 cents in early September to around 15 cents. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The massive downturn in the Trump family’s wealth coincided with a period of particular turmoil in the crypto market, during which around $1 trillion in value was wiped out.
Last week, bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, tumbled below $82,000 for the first time since mid-April. This marks a 32 percent drop from bitcoin’s all-time high of $126,000, recorded in October, reported Fortune.
The fact remains, however, that Trump and his family’s move into cryptocurrency and NFTs has still been enormously lucrative overall, boosting their wealth by billions, especially since the president returned to office. In September, the Wall Street Journal estimated that cryptocurrency had overtaken the Trump family’s real estate portfolio as their most valuable asset.
That analysis came as World Liberty Financial, a Trump-backed crypto venture, began trading on multiple exchanges, earning the family around $5 billion. However, Bloomberg now reports that the value of the Trump family’s holdings of WLFI tokens has fallen to around $3.15 billion, down from a $6 billion peak. This drop is not included in the overall wealth decline, as the coins are locked and cannot be traded.
Shares in TMTG fell to an all-time low on Wednesday, months after the company spent about $2 billion on Bitcoin and other securities, including options, according to Bloomberg. President Trump’s stake in TMTG has fallen by roughly $800 million since September.
TMTG also invested heavily in CRO, a coin issued by the Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto.com. In September, TMTG’s investment in the CRO token was worth around $147 million, but it is now worth roughly half that amount.
The share price of TMTG has plunged over the past year. Screengrab/Google
Another Trump-linked crypto venture has also cratered. Shares of American Bitcoin Corporation, in which Eric Trump owns a 7.5 percent stake, have plunged by more than half since September, wiping out more than $300 million from the family fortune. An investor who bought shares when the company went public would now be facing a 45 percent loss.
Eric Trump has downplayed the family’s massive crypto losses and insists the downturn represents a “great buying opportunity” for investors.
“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,” he told Bloomberg.