When Donald Trump unveiled a meme coin a few days before his second inauguration, the ethical mess was obvious. The Campaign Legal Center’s Adav Noti explained at the time, “It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office. It is beyond unprecedented.”

But when the president and his partners launched a contest of sorts a few months later, it took the story to a new level. Those interested in investing in Trump’s meme coin — and by extension giving the president money — were told they would have a chance to win special access to Trump and the White House.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said of the scheme, “This isn’t Trump just being Trump. The Trump coin scam is the most brazenly corrupt thing a president has ever done. Not close.”

The gambit proved predictably lucrative in what MS NOW’s Chris Hayes described as “the most brazen act of corruption by a president in our lifetimes, probably in a century, possibly ever.”

A year later, as the public gets a better sense of the billions of dollars the president added to his wealth over 2025, the finances surrounding the meme coin stand out, in large part because it’s emblematic of a larger problem. The New York Times reported:

An up-to-date tally of Trump followers turned crypto investors is in. And for them, the overall results are remarkably bad.

Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump’s memecoin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion.

It would be a mistake to describe the meme coin as a total financial disaster for those involved in the endeavor. Rather, it was a total financial disaster for everyone who isn’t the president.

Richard W. Painter, Norman Eisen and Virginia Canter wrote in a new piece for MS NOW that the value of the official Trump meme coin ($TRUMP) is down 97.7% from its all-time high, but thanks to the way the deal was structured, Trump nevertheless “banked $636 million in revenue from the venture.”

In other words, the president used his office and his platform to hype a dubious product; 988,905 people followed his lead and made an investment in the product; they lost their money, while more than $600 million ended up in Trump’s bank account.

It’s a common problem that has been consistent throughout the Republican’s career: Those who trust Trump and follow his advice too often end up looking like suckers.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s meme coin generated gains for him, massive losses for his investors appeared first on MS NOW.

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From MS Now.