Investors in cryptocurrency ventures launched by the Trump family have lost more than $4.7 billion, according to a report published Thursday by the watchdog organization Public Citizen. The findings come as President Donald Trump calls on the Senate to pass crypto market structure legislation next month, putting fresh attention on the gap between the family’s crypto business interests and the policy debate now unfolding in Washington.

Trump memecoin leaves investors with $3.2 billion in losses

The Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin, which the president unveiled three days before the start of his second presidential term, was the largest single source of the losses. As highlighted in the Public Citizen report, the meme coin accounted for $3.2 billion of the damage. Within two days of its launch, the token traded above $73, only to fall afterward; it is currently valued below $2, according to Cointelegraph and Raw Story.

Public Citizen reported that the $3.2 billion in losses do not represent vanished funds, but wealth that was shifted to a small number of early investors. Its data shows that 1% of wallets held 80% of the gains, while 65% of holders remain underwater, together representing losses totaling $3.2 billion.

President Trump himself never lost money in the scheme, the report notes. He made no investment and spent no cash on a wallet now valued at $271 million. On top of that, he earned $635 million in licensing fees from the token last year, as reported by Raw Story.

Governance tokens, trading cards and a stablecoin

World Liberty Financial's governance token — connected to the project established by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — accounts for at least another $1 billion in total losses. The token's price peaked at $0.33 in September 2025 and now trades below $0.06. According to Public Citizen, private purchasers who bought in at $0.015 or $0.05 are up between 15% and 283%, while public market purchasers who bought near the peak may be down 83%.

Trump's 2022 NFT trading cards, issued at $99 apiece, offer a further example of how the projects fared: their overall value decreased from $12.3 million to $3 million, leaving holders nearly $9.3 million in the red. Trump, by contrast, received $7.2 million in licensing fees and royalties on the trading cards.

One item managed to survive. Public Citizen says “buyers of World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin haven't suffered major losses.”

What Trump earned while investors lost

The report sums up what the president has earned through the projects: $7.2 million from the NFT trading cards, more than $600 million from World Liberty token sales and an equity position, $635 million in memecoin licensing fees, and $197 million in capital contributions to World Liberty. Some of these amounts were reported in Trump's 2025 crypto-related earnings, which totaled $1.4 billion — a figure that does not account for his equity positions in the companies.

The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Cointelegraph. Spokesperson Anna Kelly stated previously that there “were no conflicts of interest” regarding Trump's crypto assets.

Zach Everson, research director for Public Citizen's Trump Accountability Project and the report's author, urged critics not to mock those who bought in. “Trust me, I get the desire to sneer,” he wrote in a Thursday post, before arguing that buyers “got screwed over nevertheless.”

Public Citizen used the findings to renew its call for ethics provisions in the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, arguing that “the president's policy choices and personal portfolio cannot be separated” and that any market structure law should force a sitting president and his family to divest from the industry. That argument lands as lawmakers weigh whether to advance a bill that would help set the rules for the same sector tied to these losses.

The timing is deliberate. Trump met with crypto executives last week and called for a “fair version” of the CLARITY Act to pass once the Senate reconvenes. The bill faces a cloture vote on September 15 and needs at least 60 senators to move forward.