How Trump’s crypto empire fared in 2025 — and what comes next

The Trump family made a lot of money from crypto in 2025.

Hyper-volatile memecoins, a Trump-branded DeFi protocol, and juicy equity deals in Trump-linked firms have all helped enrich the president, his wife, and many of his children.

The president’s net worth, which his crypto ventures contribute significantly to, sits at $6.6 billion, according to a Forbes analysis.

Many of those who bought into the Trumps’ crypto ventures haven’t been so fortunate, however.

Join DL News as we take a look at the winners and losers of Trump’s crypto empire, and what it all means for investors over the coming year.

Trump memecoins

Trump-branded memecoins were the first to hit the market in 2025, with the president launching his own three days before his inauguration, and his wife, Melania, launching hers two days later.

Both tokens initially soared to multi-billion dollar valuations, only to nosedive throughout the rest of the year. Those who bought Trump’s memecoin close to its all-time high are down 92%, while Melania’s token has crashed more than 99%.

That doesn’t mean the Trumps haven’t profited handsomely, however.

Trump or Trump-controlled companies will eventually receive a whopping 80% of his memecoin’s total supply, according to the Trump memecoin website. At $5.50 a token and with one billion total tokens in existence, his memecoin trove is worth around $4.4 billion.

However, this stash couldn’t all be sold without crashing the token’s price, meaning its real value is substantially less.

So far, wallets tied to Trump’s memecoin have sent $96 million worth of USDC and $8.5 million worth of TRUMP to Fireblocks, a crypto custody platform that also sells assets on its clients’ behalf.

As for Melania, it’s unclear if she ever had any direct stake in her own memecoin.

An amended complaint filed in October alleges that she was merely a pawn in a sophisticated pump-and-dump scheme surrounding the token run by Benjamin Chow, co-founder of crypto exchange Meteora, and Hayden Davis, co-founder of crypto venture capital firm Kelsier Labs.

One wallet tied to the Melania memecoin sent $4.4 million in USDC to crypto exchange Kraken in September, onchain records show. Another wallet sent a similar amount to several different exchanges between March and April.

World Liberty Financial

World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s DeFi protocol, concluded its public WLFI token sale in March, netting $550 million.

Of that amount, $15 million was put aside for operating costs, according to the project’s public documentation. Of the remaining $535 million, just over $401 million — or 75% — goes to DT Marks DEFI LLC, a firm which Trump owns 70% of while his family owns the remaining 30%.

Trump was removed as a co-founder of World Liberty Financial upon taking office but his firm still receives proceeds from the venture through DT Marks.

Trump and his family also own a substantial amount of the WLFI token themselves.

DT Marks owns 22.5 billion tokens — 22.5% of the total supply. This implies Trump’s personal share is approximately 15.75 billion tokens, which has a current market value of just over $2 billion.

These tokens are locked and not yet freely tradable, however.

There’s also World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin to consider.

The project backs the stablecoin with short-term US government treasuries, US dollar deposits and other cash equivalents.

Based on the $3.8 billion USD1 in circulation, World Liberty should generate around $100 million in interest from these backing assets, 75% of which goes to DT Marks.

Finally, there’s Alt5 Sigma, a publicly-traded crypto treasury firm with a mandate to buy up the project’s WLFI token.

In August, the firm bought 150 million WLFI directly from World Liberty for $750 million in cash and equity. As before, 75% of the cash proceeds are likely destined for DT Marks, per World Liberty Financial’s documentation.

Public companies

Trump and his family’s dealings in their crypto-linked public companies haven’t fared as well as their pure crypto ventures.

Trump Media and Technology Group, the president’s media company, announced in July that it had bought $2 billion of Bitcoin. At the time, the world’s largest cryptocurrency traded at around $103,000.

As it now trades at around $92,000, the firm, which Trump owns just over 50% of, is almost certainly sitting on a significant unrealised loss.

Then there’s American Bitcoin, a Bitcoin mining firm co-founded by Eric Trump which lists his brother Donald Trump Jr. as a shareholder.

Eric owns 7.3%, while Don Jr. is listed as an investor but without a specified stake.

Shares of American Bitcoin have plummeted almost 80% since its September 3 debut following a reverse merger by acquiring the public shell of Gryphon Digital Mining.

The drop has resulted in amore than $400 million unrealised loss on Eric’s share of the firm from its September 3 value.

What comes next?

While Trump’s crypto ventures have enriched him and his family, cracks are beginning to show.

Accusations that Trump’s crypto dealings raise conflicts of interest, and have led to widespread corruption and self-dealing, are mounting.

The White House has repeatedly refuted these allegations.

“President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest,” Anna Kelly, the deputy press secretary, told DL News.

Still, with enough political force, these accusations could escalate over the coming year.

At the same time, most of Trump’s crypto ventures are plummeting in value, costing those left holding the bag dearly and eroding his paper gains.

Yet despite all that, there’s little sign that Trump’s crypto profits will dry up completely any time soon.

With the president’s formidable star power driving interest, crypto will likely continue to generate more profit than anything else has in his more-than 50 years in business.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.