Stocks and cryptocurrencies tied to President Donald Trump should have soared this year but instead have plunged, saddling some of his most ardent supporters with significant losses.
Since taking office on Jan. 20, shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, which trades on the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, have declined more than 70%. The digital “meme coins” named after Trump and first lady Melania Trump have fared far worse, falling 86% and 99% since the start of the year.
Both tokens debuted the weekend ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration and quickly gained attention on crypto forums and partisan media outlets. But 11 months later, it has been anything but smooth sailing.
At its high, TRUMP, the Official Trump token, hit $75.35, and at its low, $1.21, according to Crypto.com. Meanwhile, MELANIA, which hit a high of $13.73, has fallen to $0.12. One of the Trump family’s crypto ventures, World Liberty Financial, has dropped roughly 40% since its September launch.
“The ‘Trump trades’ are languishing because they were never investments to begin with,” Johnny Gabriele, CEO at Texas-based Daedalus Consulting, told the Washington Examiner. “They were grifts. Meme coins are no different from NFTs (non-fungible tokens). You have to ask where the value comes from, and am I OK with taking this gamble?”
Gabriele added that World Liberty Financial was “a slightly different story” but argued it is “also a copy-paste of a well-known protocol that is already serving customers.”
“Between tariffs and crimes, the Trump administration has been incredibly bad for crypto,” he said. “No one feels comfortable looking into crypto or web3 anymore because it feels far more dangerous than it did pre-2022.”
Trump-linked stocks initially rode a wave of optimism, fueled by expectations that his administration would deliver deregulation, tax cuts, and favorable cryptocurrency policies, while assets connected to Trump and his family were expected to keep climbing.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to make the United States the“crypto capital of the planet” and to create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin.
On his second day in office, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, a notorious online marketplace that used cryptocurrency for transactions. Ulbricht, who had gained a cult following among crypto enthusiasts, was serving two life sentences at the time.
On his third day in office, Trump signed an executive order aimed at boosting crypto in the U.S., criticizing former President Joe Biden’s administration’s regulatory actions as a “war on cryptocurrency.”
In July, the president enacted the GENIUS Act, which weakened consumer banking safeguards for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency. In October, he pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Binance was investigated in 2021 by the Biden administration regarding allegations of money laundering and tax crimes. The company, alongside Zhao, pleaded guilty in November 2023.
When asked about Zhao’s pardon, Trump said that he “gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.”
Since Trump’s return to the Oval Office, the Securities and Exchange Commission has either closed or postponed 18 investigations and legal cases involving crypto companies.
Trump’s son, Eric Trump, jumped into the crypto mining world. Shares of American Bitcoin Corp., his cryptocurrency mining company, plunged sharply, losing over 30% of their value in under a minute and closing Tuesday down 39%. The steep drop followed the company’s release of previously restricted shares for public trading, though Bloomberg reported the stock partially recovered, rising 8.7% in Wednesday premarket trading.
“The Trump presidency has been a double-edged sword for legitimacy,” Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, told Bloomberg. “Trump started launching his own crypto projects, many of which lost value very quickly. If the goal was to achieve legitimacy through the Trump family, that’s not helped.”
But it’s not just Trump-related shares taking a beating. Bitcoin closed at a record high on Oct. 10, hitting $124,752 but has fallen almost 30% since to $87,845. In all, bitcoin has lost more than 11% of its value since Trump returned to the White House.
“I believe what we are seeing right now is a natural unwinding of many ‘hype driven’ trades tied to the name Trump, and not a reflection of President Trump’s policies or the broader economic direction under his leadership,” Shmuel Shayowitz, president of New Jersey-based Approved Funding, told the Washington Examiner. “The irony is that the markets are actually responding favorably to Trump’s real economic agenda, but that hasn’t, and shouldn’t, translate equally to these ‘side-show’ assets.”
BITCOIN SHEDS MONTHS OF GAINS AS BEAR MARKET FEARS RISE
Shayowitz said investors “should focus on fundamentals and value and not make decisions based on fanfare or fanatical speculation.”
He added that he believes that in 2026, the “Trump administration will be spending more time on their Crypto agenda and policies, and we will see a renewed momentum in that sector once again.”
