Donald Trump's personal lawyers are drawing fresh scrutiny as blockchain data shows nearly 1 million buyers of the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin lost a combined $3.8 billion.
Key Points:
- Analytics firm Nansen found 988,905 TRUMP buyers, about two in three, lost a combined $3.81 billion through June.
- Trump disclosed $636 million in income from the token, part of roughly $1.4 billion in crypto earnings last year.
- His personal legal team operates with unusual independence and has litigated against his own government, new reporting shows.
Trump Legal Team Under Scrutiny
After cycling through a list of prominent attorneys, Trump now relies on lesser-known civil litigators willing to make arguments other lawyers refused, a Jul. 10 investigation reported. The group has sued journalists, litigated against agencies of the government Trump leads, and extracted multimillion-dollar settlements from ABC, YouTube and Paramount. Longtime adviser Boris Epshteyn, described as the central figure, manages the relationship with the client rather than the courtroom work.
That independence now collides with an uncomfortable set of numbers. Analytics firm Nansen found that 988,905 wallets, roughly two out of every three buyers, had lost money on the token by the end of June, with combined losses reaching $3.81 billion including paper losses.
Trump disclosed $636 million in income from the memecoin in a filing submitted Jun. 29, part of roughly $1.4 billion he earned from crypto ventures last year. Entities tied to his family hold about 80% of the token supply and collect fees on every trade, records showed, so he profits whether the price rises or falls. Nansen ran the same review on World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the family's other venture, and found 85% of trackable wallets underwater.
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Experts Question Presidential Crypto Profits
The gap is legal, and that is the point.
No federal ethics statute bars a sitting president from profiting on a digital asset while his administration shapes crypto policy, and the conflict-of-interest rules covering Cabinet members exempt the president entirely. Legal scholars agree the setup is lawful under current law, and the White House has denied any conflict of interest.
Critics are pressing anyway. Rep. Al Green of Texas accused the president of running a legalized Ponzi scheme at a June hearing, while investor Nicholas Pinto, who lost about half of a $500,000 position, called the token "almost a legal scam." Sen. Elizabeth Warren has urged lawmakers to write a presidential crypto profit ban into the CLARITY Act.
The token's own history explains the anger. TRUMP launched three days before the January 2025 inauguration and spiked to $75.35 within days as retail demand peaked, but it now trades near $1.76, down about 97%, with its market value shrunk from $27 billion to under $400 million. Nansen's data shows nearly $4 billion in gains went to roughly 500,000 wallets, most of them early buyers and automated traders who exited before the retail crowd arrived.
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