“Pump and dump”: How Trump made $636 million — and left his supporters holding the bag
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump released his 927-page financial disclosure. The filing, which reveals the sources of his income, shows that Trump made at least $2.2 billion in his first year in office.
While Trump is known for being a real estate developer, the filing shows that most of his income now comes from his crypto ventures. According to the report, Trump earned around $1.4 billion from crypto-related businesses. In comparison, Trump “reported over $620 million in real estate, hotel and golf-related income.”
Much of Trump’s crypto-related income is from his most frivolous venture — the Trump meme coin, $TRUMP. Trump launched his meme coin, which is a type of crypto token tied to a celebrity or joke, on January 17, 2025, just days before his inauguration for his second term.
According to the financial disclosures, Trump’s meme coin business, CIC Digital LLC, “generated $636 million in income,” with the majority of it coming from “royalties from a license agreement with Celebration Coins,” Bloomberg reported. The income from Trump’s meme coin business includes money collected from the initial sale of 200 million tokens plus transaction fees that are siphoned off of each trade.
Trump’s reported earnings from the $TRUMP coin prove that the token is great for Trump. But investors in the coin are not reaping the same benefits. Since it first launched, the coin has lost around 97% of its value. The token reached a peak value of over $74 shortly after it launched, but, as of Wednesday, it sits at $1.66, according to Coinbase.
While the companies behind $TRUMP don’t disclose revenue, a Reuters investigation that used blockchain data found that buyers have plowed at least $1.2 billion into $TRUMP. But, based on the price of the coin as of April 30, these holdings were worth only $521 million. This amounted to “a loss of more than $700 million for buyers.” (The value of a $TRUMP token was around $2.40 on April 30, so investor losses are even larger today.)
A software project engineer, Fatime Elrgdawy, told Reuters that she put $2,000 of her savings into $TRUMP after her friend told her about an online post from Trump promoting the launch of the coin. Elrgdawy thought that “it must be a legitimate investment” if Trump was putting his name on it. But as of the end of May, her $TRUMP tokens were worth less than $120. Elrgdawy told Reuters that she now thinks the Trump meme coin “was just a pump and dump scheme.”
“I LOVE $TRUMP!!”
The $TRUMP coin has lost much of its value despite numerous efforts by the Trump family to revive interest. Trump has posted multiple times about the coin since its launch. “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE!” Trump wrote on X on January 17, 2025. “It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW.”
On January 31, 2025, Trump advertised the meme coin on Truth Social, writing, “I LOVE $TRUMP!!” On March 23, 2025, Trump promoted the token again on the platform, posting, “I LOVE $TRUMP — SO COOL!!! The Greatest of them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The $TRUMP coin has also been promoted by Trump’s sons. On January 18, 2025, Eric Trump wrote on X that “$Trump is currently the hottest digital meme on earth.” The following day, Donald Trump Jr. echoed the same message.
Trump has also held multiple events to promote sales of his meme coin. On May 22, 2025, Trump held an event at his golf club in Virginia for the top owners of $TRUMP. The top 220 buyers of the coin were invited to a dinner with Trump at the golf club, “while the top 25 would attend a more intimate gathering with the president before dinner and go on a tour of the White House.” Trump promoted the event in a post on Truth Social. In April of this year, Trump held a crypto and business conference for top buyers of his meme coin at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump ends legal action against crypto exchanges that list $TRUMP
Since coming back to office, Trump has made a major effort to deregulate the crypto industry. A 2025 investigation by the New York Times found that, under the second Trump administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “had eased up on more than 60 percent of the crypto cases that were ongoing when Mr. Trump returned to the White House.”
The Trump administration has dropped prosecutions and investigations against crypto exchanges that have been favorable to his own crypto ventures. In February 2025, for example, the SEC announced that it was dismissing an enforcement case against Coinbase. In May 2025, the SEC dropped a lawsuit against Binance. The SEC also dropped a case against Kraken and an investigation into Robinhood’s crypto arm.
All of these companies have listed $TRUMP on their exchanges and promoted the token, dramatically increasing volume and boosting Trump’s returns.
I'm sorry, I am incapable of sympathy or empathy or anything but schadenfreude for anyone STUPID or GULLIBLE enough to invest in anything Trump is selling. He is and always has been a con man who knows that there is, in fact, a sucker born every minute.
If this doesn't convince Trump supporters that Trump's a con who doesn't care. nothing will.