In just over a month, the cryptocurrency market has lost $1.2 trillion in value. The continuous declines since mid-October have erased much of the gains achieved by both small and large investors. Among the latter there is a well-known figure: US President Donald Trump, who is also partly responsible for the euphoria experienced by the sector until October.
But the Trump effect has completely faded, with digital assets returning to levels seen before his term. His direct support of the industry and entry into the cryptocurrency business fueled short-term excitement, but now investors have forgotten about it. Today, the focus of the debate is the potential AI bubble and interest rate cuts. And Trump’s business empire has suffered the shock of reality: since September it has lost at least $1 billion of its assets (going from $7.7 billion at the beginning of September to the current $6.7 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a decline largely due to the Trump family’s growing ties to crypto projects.
The Trump family has gone all-in on digital assets: launching tokens, creating companies, investing in the sector, pardoning convicted cryptocurrency tycoon Changpeng Zhao, and legislating in favor of the sector, pushing major cryptocurrencies to all-time highs. But in this market – marked by extreme volatility and speculation – no one is spared, not even the president. A good example of this was the launch, a few days before Trump’s inauguration, of the $TRUMP memecoin, a token with no backing beyond being tied to the tycoon’s image. A few minutes after its release, euphoria erupted and the token reached a value of over $15 billion. But like any speculative wave, the enthusiasm was short-lived and its price plummeted by up to 76% in just a few hours.
In recent months $TRUMP has gone through ups and downs, but since mid-August its declines have intensified, losing around 40% of its value; since its launch it has fallen by 85%. To date, the extent of the Trump family’s participation in the project is unclear; According to Bloomberg estimates, people close to him hold around 40% of all tokens in circulation. At current prices, that stake is worth about $310 million, implying a loss of $117 million since the end of August.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Trump family’s crypto empire. With their flagship project, the World Liberty Financial crypto platform, they issued the WLFI token, which has fallen 38% since the beginning of September: people close to the president hold an amount of tokens that reached a book value of around $6 billion at its peak, but are now worth half that (around $3.15 billion) according to Bloomberg data. These assets, however, are not included in the agency’s calculations, as they are not traded on organized markets.
Not all of their operations resulted in losses. In August, the company sold some of those assets to Alt5 Sigma Corp, a biotech-turned-fintech company where Eric Trump is a board member. From that sale, Trump’s company earned $750 million in cash plus an equity stake. Alt5 Sigma, on the other hand, has fared worse: since then its shares have fallen by 78%.
World Liberty Financial was the springboard for Trump’s children to enter the crypto ecosystem. Beyond that platform, they have expanded their influence to other digital asset-related companies. In March, Eric Trump co-founded American Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency mining company where he serves as Chief Strategy Officer and owns about 7.5% of the Nasdaq-listed company. Donald Trump Jr. also holds a smaller share, although the percentage is not known. The company’s shares hit a high on September 9, pushing the value of Eric Trump’s stake up to $630 million. But they have since gone into free fall: they have plummeted 53%, wiping more than $300 million from Eric Trump’s wealth.
With Trump Media, founded by the president, the Trump family has also embraced the cryptocurrency industry. In recent months, they have filed applications to launch three exchange-traded funds (ETFs): one tied to Bitcoin, another tied to Bitcoin and Ether, and a third that tracks the price of these two assets along with others like Solana, Cronos, and XRP. The company, which is unprofitable, has spent about $2 billion in the leading cryptocurrency, according to a statement in July, and holds about 11,500 bitcoin in its reserves — acquired when it was trading at about $115,000 — implying a loss of about 25%. It also began purchasing units of Cronos (CRO), a dark token issued by the Crypto.com exchange. It held about $147 million in this asset at the end of September. Since then, CRO has lost 45% of its value, and Trump Media has followed in its footsteps: it is down 70% this year and its shares are now near record lows.
Even so, the Trumps’ confidence in the cryptocurrency market remains intact. Through his X account, Eric Trump encouraged people to buy cryptocurrencies now that they are in crisis, although in a recent interview he advised to stay out of cryptocurrencies “if you can’t handle the volatility.” In a market where wild swings are the norm, it remains to be seen whether this belief will become a long-term strategy or end up becoming a major source of volatility for his empire, capable of testing the president’s patience and temperament, which are also highly unpredictable.
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