This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Trump’s second term has turned his family’s crypto adventure into something far more dramatic than a simple market wobble. What started as a bold push into digital assets is now colliding with a trillion-dollar crypto drawdown, pulling the family’s net worth from about $7.7 billion in early September to roughly $6.7 billion. A Trump-branded memecoin has slipped about a quarter since August, Eric Trump’s stake in American Bitcoin Corp. (NASDAQ:ABTC) has been cut by more than half from its early-September peak, and Trump Media & Technology Group which dived into Bitcoin (BTC-USD) earlier this year is hovering near an all-time low. For everyday investors piling into Trump-linked tokens and stocks, the swings could be particularly jarring, given that anyone who bought the memecoin at its inauguration-weekend high would now be staring at near-total losses.
But beneath the surface volatility sits a more nuanced capital story. Trump Media’s nearly $2 billion push into Bitcoin and related instruments left the company holding roughly 11,500 coins purchased around $115,000 each, a position now showing about a 25% loss. Its CRO token bet, valued at about $147 million in late September, has since been cut roughly in half. Meanwhile, the family’s flagship venture, World Liberty Financial, has watched its WLFI token slip from 26 cents in early September to around 15 cents, taking the paper value of its locked token trove from nearly $6 billion to about $3.15 billion. Yet liquidity has flowed their way: the Alt5 Sigma deal delivered $750 million in cash and an equity stake for World Liberty, with roughly $500 million of proceeds going to the Trumps, plus about another $400 million from WLFI token sales before the deal. Alt5 shares have fallen about 75% since the announcement, but the timing still worked heavily in the family’s favor.
Eric Trump’s 7.5% stake in American Bitcoin Corp. has shed more than $300 million as ABTC’s share price slid more than 50% from its September highs, and the Trump memecoin has lost another 25% since August, trimming the family’s portion by about $117 million to roughly $310 million. Yet new vesting has partly offset the drop: nearly 90 million additional tokens unlocked for insiders since July, with Bloomberg attributing about 40% of those worth roughly $220 million to the Trumps. Whether they’ve sold any remains unclear. What is clear is the message coming from Eric Trump, who continues to frame the downturn as a moment for long-term investors to lean in. In his view, those who embrace volatility could be positioning themselves for the next chapter of a maturing crypto financial system one the Trump family is now deeply, and strategically, embedded in.
