President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump launched their official cryptocurrency tokens more than a year ago. Today, those digital assets have wiped out $4.3 billion in retail wealth.
According to Cryptorank, 2 million everyday investors currently hold underwater positions, while 45 early-deployment wallets have gained a combined $1.2 billion. For every dollar insiders earned, retail investors lost $20.
Trump Coins Fall Up to 99% Amid Insider Windfall
As a result, the rapid decline of these tokens, alongside the significant gains of early insiders, has attracted much attention from industry observers.
Blockchain analytics firm CryptoRank found the TRUMP token has fallen 92% to $3.55 from its $75 all-time high. The MELANIA token dropped 99% to 11 cents from $13.05.
Although the broader cryptocurrency market shed over $1 trillion in value during the same period, researchers attributed the presidential tokens’ steeper declines to structural design rather than general market conditions.
On-chain forensics show anonymous accounts linked to the initial developers systematically drained decentralized liquidity pools.
In December 2025 alone, blockchain analyst EmberCN reported that the TRUMP token’s primary deployment address transferred $94 million in USDC into the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
The developers utilized a strategy called single-sided liquidity provision on the decentralized platform Meteora.
Here, insiders deposited only TRUMP and MELANIA tokens without pairing them with dollar equivalents.
This strategy programmed the automated market maker to continuously sell their holdings to incoming retail buyers. The assets were then quietly converted into USDC
Furthermore, the threat of continued dilution looms heavily over the remaining holders.
CryptoRank data shows developers locked $2.7 billion in insider tokens inside smart contracts until 2028. Because this expiration date coincides perfectly with the end of Trump’s presidential term, it establishes a highly structured exit strategy.
This means that underwater retail holders will likely serve as exit liquidity for this final insider payout when those tokens finally hit the open market.
Source: https://beincrypto.com/trump-meme-coins-took-4-billion-from-retail-investors/
