Reuters says Trump family crypto ventures added billions, investors lost billions

The Trump family’s crypto push has produced a stark imbalance: at least $2.3 billion has flowed into the family’s fortune from its main ventures since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, while more than a million investors collectively lost about $2.3 billion. The gains came through a structure that concentrated upside inside the Trump orbit and pushed risk outward to buyers, with money flowing through token sales, licensing arrangements and related crypto projects.

The family’s biggest source of revenue was World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance project launched in September 2024. Trump-linked entities were entitled to a 75% share of token-sale proceeds, a setup that left insiders positioned to benefit from the moment tokens were sold. The family’s crypto holdings also included the $TRUMP meme coin, American Bitcoin and AI Financial Corp., giving the Trump brand exposure across several corners of the industry at once.

That model paid quickly. In the first half of 2025 alone, the Trump family raked in more than $800 million from crypto asset sales, much of it from foreign sources. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. promoted the business on an international investor roadshow, underscoring how closely the family’s financial interests were tied to Donald Trump’s public profile and political power.

One stop on that roadshow came in Dubai, where Eric Trump met a Chinese businessman and others at a cryptocurrency conference and pitched a $20 million buy-in to World Liberty tokens. The businessman was identified as Guren “Bobby” Zhou, who is under investigation in Britain for money laundering. Later, on June 26, an Abu Dhabi-linked entity called Aqua1 Foundation announced it was buying $100 million in WLFI tokens, the largest known purchase at that point.

The same pattern appeared in a separate deal involving the company then called Alt5 Sigma, now AI Financial Corp. Company disclosures showed the Trump family was entitled to roughly $500 million from the World Liberty Financial transaction, while the stock later fell more than 90%. AI Financial Corp. warned it may not be able to continue as a going concern, a reminder that the downside can land on outside shareholders even when insiders have already locked in gains.

The political fallout has been building alongside the profits. In June 2025, Senate Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley raised conflict-of-interest concerns over World Liberty Financial and a stablecoin tied to a sitting president. The Senate Banking Committee also warned that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s staff statement on meme coins, issued weeks after Trump and Melania Trump launched their own coins, could shield them from scrutiny. By April 2026, Democrats were pushing an ethics provision in a Senate crypto bill aimed in part at the Trump family’s businesses, while Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said ethics language had to be included.

Eight government ethics experts later described the family’s enrichment from an industry regulated by the president’s administration as a conflict of interest unlike anything seen in modern American history.