Back to Markets
Crypto▼ Bearish
Trump $1.2B Crypto Gain Puts 764K Supporters Under Water
Trump made $1.2B from crypto ventures as 764K of his supporters lost $380M on digital assets. The disclosure fuels conflict-of-interest questions ahead of SEC rule changes.
Continue with
Donald Trump reported $1.2 billion in income from crypto-related ventures in a financial disclosure filed Monday, the same period in which roughly 764,000 of his donors and supporters faced steep losses on digital asset investments, according to campaign finance records and on-chain wallet analysis.
The disclosure covers the former president's holdings across several crypto projects, including a majority stake in the Trump-branded NFT collection, a revenue-sharing agreement with a DeFi lending platform, and an equity position in a Bitcoin mining operation. The $1.2 billion figure represents realized and unrealized gains through the first quarter of 2026.
Campaign finance data matched against public wallet addresses shows that 71% of the individual donors who gave to Trump-aligned PACs and also held identifiable crypto wallets had lost value on their positions. Total estimated losses for that group came to roughly $380 million, based on the difference between their average purchase price and current market value on May 15.
Ethics lawyers said the asymmetry creates a regulatory problem for the SEC and CFTC, both of which have pending rulemakings on crypto classification and custody. Trump's posted policies include a promise to fire the SEC chair and replace the CFTC's enforcement division with a market-friendly framework.
"The self-dealing concern is not theoretical," said Sarah Horwitz, a former SEC enforcement attorney now at the University of Michigan Law School. "The person with rulemaking authority over your industry made a billion dollars in that industry while your savings fell by a third. Money does not have to change hands for the conflict to exist."