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Personal Finance Oct 17, 2026

Official Trump team extracts up to $1.1 billion in profits as retail losses near 100%

The leadership group behind the Official Trump (TRUMP) meme coin has successfully pulled between $779.4 million and $1.16 billion in gains from the digital asset, according to recent financial analysis. These findings, released on October 17, 2026, by CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju, highlight a stark contrast between the creators' financial success and the experience of retail buyers. As the team secured these substantial sums, the market value of the token plummeted by approximately 97 percent from the record highs it achieved in early 2025.

Estimated Profits and Market Decline

Data provided by CryptoQuant tracks the movement of funds from January 1, 2025, through October 1, 2026. The analysis identifies a confirmed realized profit of $779.4 million, a figure calculated by monitoring stablecoin outflows and the movement of TRUMP tokens to specific, labeled cryptocurrency exchanges. The higher estimate of $1.16 billion accounts for additional transfers made to external addresses or unidentified custody accounts. While these larger movements suggest significant activity, analysts note that transfers to private wallets do not always represent finalized sales or cash profits.

The financial trajectory of the TRUMP token showed profits climbing in distinct phases throughout 2025 before the growth trend leveled off toward the end of that year. During its initial surge, the coin reached a peak price of $73 on January 19, 2025, shortly after it was introduced to the market. However, by October 17, 2026, the valuation had cratered to just $1.80. This represents a total price collapse of roughly 97.5 percent, leaving late-stage investors with nearly nothing.

Retail Investors Face Steep Losses

For individual investors who purchased the token at its height, the financial consequences have been severe. A person who put $1,000 into the asset at its $73 peak would see that investment worth only about $25 today, not including various transaction fees. While the exact losses for any single trader depend on their specific entry and exit points, the overall trend for retail participants has been overwhelmingly negative as the token's value evaporated.

These new estimates contribute to the growing body of evidence regarding the financial performance of digital currency projects linked to Donald Trump and his family. A separate investigation conducted by Reuters in June 2026 suggested that the Trump family earned roughly $2.3 billion from four different crypto-related projects between the middle of 2024 and April 2026. That report attributed approximately $616 million of those earnings specifically to the TRUMP meme coin.

Venture Launch and Token Allocation

The Official Trump token originally debuted in January 2025 on the Solana blockchain. At the time of its launch, the project creators allocated 80 percent of the total token supply to entities connected to the developers. This massive share of the supply was reportedly subject to a vesting schedule spanning several years. Because the Reuters data and the CryptoQuant data cover different timeframes and various business entities, the figures from the two reports cannot be combined into a single total.

Source: finbold.com · 2026-10-17

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