Global Financial Media

GFM's Web4 × RWA Special Series: Deconstructing the Institutions - Part 3 of "The Trump Family's Currency"

(Image caption) The core of $TRUMP is not price, but supply. When 80% of the tokens are concentrated in the hands of related entities, the real question the market needs to ask is not how much the price will rise or fall today, but who controls the tap.

Late at night on January 17, 2025, just two days before his inauguration, Trump posted a link to a token on social media.

Within hours, Trump's market capitalization surged past $7 billion. People were buying like crazy, as if they were buying tickets to a party with an unclear theme. Some called it history, some called it culture, and some said it was just a joke that walked into Wall Street.

But few people checked the website disclosure immediately.

The document clearly states that CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC together hold 80% of the total supply of $TRUMP, subject to a three-year unlocking schedule; the official statement also indicates that the two companies will receive revenue from token trading activities.

This is not a detailed rule; it is the framework of the entire structure.

⸻

Jokes are the surface, supply is the skeleton.

Memecoins are hard to take seriously because of their incredibly lightweight nature. They have memes, slogans, emotions, and speed. They're like an improvisational comedy in the financial world, making people laugh out loud while forgetting to ask the most basic question: Where does the money go?

The official positioning of $TRUMP is that it represents support for and participation in a certain "idea and symbol," explicitly stating that it does not constitute an investment opportunity, investment contract, or any type of security. This statement is frank, but equally frank is that it completely exempts the issuer from most of the information disclosure obligations under traditional securities regulation.

What you're buying is emotion.

What they are holding onto are their chips.

This is not a secret, but most people don't check the website's legal terms when looking at candlestick charts.

For assets in any mature market, prices are backed by something: company profits, cash flow, the board of directors, auditors, and trading windows. Shareholders can sue, regulatory agencies can intervene, and there are legal standards for information disclosure. The world of memes is different. There are no financial reports, no dividend promises, no voting rights—even the word "investment" has been deliberately crossed out by the issuer.

In such an environment, the true "fundamentals" of an asset are not in the income statement, but in the supply statement.

Who has the goods? How much? When can they be sold?

CIC Digital LLC is an affiliate of the Trump Organization, and Fight Fight Fight LLC is jointly owned by them. Together, they control 80% of the $TRUMP token supply. With a total supply of 1 billion tokens, only 200 million were released into circulation on the first day—the remaining 80% are locked up over a three-year unlocking period, hanging over the market, awaiting their release.

This is structure. After the emotions subside, structure becomes the deciding factor.

(Image caption) In the meme market, retail investors believe they are betting on price, but project teams may be continuously generating revenue through each transaction. Volatility is a risk for retail investors, but it can be a source of cash flow for those who charge fees.

⸻

Making money without selling cryptocurrency

Many people, when trying to understand the profit model of crypto projects, only think of one thing: selling cryptocurrency.

Buy, drive up the price, sell, and cash out.

$TRUMP is more complex and more durable in design.

The token's smart contract automatically directs a portion of the transaction fees from each transaction to the project's linked wallet, allowing the team to continuously benefit from ongoing trading activity. In other words, regardless of whether retail investors buy or sell, as long as a transaction occurs, the fees will flow in the same direction.

This structure produced astonishing results in its early stages. Within three weeks of the token's launch, over 810,000 crypto wallets had incurred losses, totaling approximately $2 billion; meanwhile, Trump-affiliated entities and their partners collected approximately $100 million in transaction fees during the same period. Fortune's statistics show that for every dollar lost by retail investors, the project's transaction fee revenue increased by five cents—meaning that retail investor losses were approximately 20 times the fee revenue.

By May 2025, this number continued to grow. According to data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the creators of the $TRUMP token had earned approximately $320 million from transaction fees, while 760,000 wallets—primarily retail investors—incurred losses; 58 wallets each recorded profits exceeding $10 million, totaling over $1.1 billion.

This is not a symmetrical game.

For individual investors, volatility is a risk.

For the party that collects transaction fees, volatility translates into stable cash flow.

The more bustling the market, the higher the fees. The more fervent the emotions, the more frequent the transactions. The issuer doesn't need the token to rise to a certain level; as long as there are continuous buyers and sellers, the machine will keep running.

⸻

That dinner

If the supply structure is the institutional foundation of $Trump, then the dinner on May 22, 2025, brought this story into another dimension.

In late April, the official website of Trump Memecoin announced that the 220 investors with the largest holdings would be invited to a black-tie dinner at Trump's Virginia Golf Club, with the president himself in attendance. The first 25 holders would receive additional VIP treatment and a "special White House tour." The first four would receive a limited-edition Trump-branded watch.

Following this news, the price of $TRUMP surged by more than 60% within hours.

The 220 invitees who purchased seats collectively invested approximately $148 million in $TRUMP tokens; the top 25 holders alone invested over $111 million.

It was an expensive dinner. The menu included a "Trump Organic Country Salad," filet mignon, and chocolate lava cake. Seated at the head of the table was Justin Sun, the Chinese-born cryptocurrency tycoon who topped the list with over 13 million time-weighted holdings, worth approximately $18.5 million at the time, and was personally presented with a "Trump Gold Tourbillon Watch" by the president.

Justin Sun is not without controversy. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against him as early as 2023, accusing him of fraudulent market manipulation on his blockchain platform. However, the Trump administration suspended the legal action after Sun invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial, another crypto project of the Trump family.

This matter, without needing any political label, already constitutes a systemic problem:

When someone can exchange purchasing tokens from the president's personal brand for face-to-face contact with the president, how thick is the firewall between public power and private business?

In a letter to the Department of Justice, U.S. lawmakers argued that while U.S. law prohibits foreign individuals from donating to political activities, the use of Trump tokens—particularly in the form of dinner invitations—has created a loophole for foreign governments to exert influence over the president without revealing their identities.

Outside the dinner venue, protesters held signs that read: "America is not for sale." and "Stop crypto corruption."

(Image caption) That expensive dinner. The amount of tokens held becomes a ticket to enter the dinner and get closer to power. $TRUMP is therefore no longer just a token, but a gray container between political branding, financial transactions, and identity access.

⸻

Who has the tap?

The supply structure of $TRUMP is also an anomaly in the context of the crypto market.

MegaETH co-founder Shuyao Kong once clearly stated: "It is completely abnormal for 80% of the supply of a meme coin to go to the founders - in fact, meme coins are known for their fair issuance, which means that no insiders can get tokens before the launch."

This statement gets to the heart of the matter.

Memecoins were originally a special species in the crypto world, with their cultural credibility built on "decentralization" and "fair starting line." Everyone can start from scratch, without institutions, private placements, or a pre-allocated supply hanging over their heads.

$TRUMP retains the meme coin's outer shell, but incorporates a completely different supply logic.

The combined 80% token supply held by CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC will be unlocked in batches over three years; both companies will generate revenue from token trading activities. This means that over the next three years, each unlocking window will require the market to absorb a potential selling pressure that is structurally foreshadowed.

In addition, Fight Fight Fight LLC plans to raise at least $200 million to establish a Digital Asset Treasury, which will be used to purchase $TRUMP on the secondary market to support liquidity. With planned unlocking on one hand and active market intervention on the other, the market's fate hinges on the decisions of the same entity in both directions.

The official terms state that: Token-related entities may dispose of tokens through third parties while marketing or community activities are underway; investors should not rely on any promotional activities to hold $TRUMP, nor should they assume that promotional activities can maintain any particular price level.

This passage is worth reading repeatedly.

It means that the performance is still going on, but the door behind the scenes may open at any time.

⸻

The numbers will speak for themselves.

Looking at a longer timeline, the story of $TRUMP had already reached a preliminary conclusion in 2026.

A year after its launch, MELANIA's price has plummeted to nearly 99%. Data from CryptoRank shows that the ratio of retail investor losses to insider profits is approximately 20 to 1. Currently, about 2 million wallets are operating at a loss, with cumulative retail losses exceeding $4.3 billion, while insiders have cashed out over $600 million through fees and token sales.

Among those who suffered losses, the Washington Post investigation paints a more concrete picture: of the approximately 67,000 individual investors who purchased $TRUMP through the official website using debit cards, the typical buyer invested about $100 and ultimately suffered an unrealized loss of about $62; of these buyers, about 80% experienced significant devaluation.

A loss of $100, or $62.

This isn't the bill of a wealthy crypto hedge fund. It's the bill of an ordinary person who, late one night in January 2025, tapped the confirmation button on his phone. Maybe he supported Trump, maybe he just wanted to take a gamble, maybe he thought, "The president's recommendations can't be too bad."

The token's smart contract had no bias against his motives. It simply directed a portion of the fees to the project team's wallet the moment he purchased it.

Numbers don't lie. They simply record things silently and wait to be seen.

(Image caption) When prices fall and the story fades, ordinary investors will finally see the supply table that was there from the beginning. The most fascinating thing about memes is their narrative; the most brutal thing is their settlement.

⸻

Where are the boundaries of the system?

GFM is not here to act as a moral judge.

The problem with $TRUMP is not the form of meme currency, nor the person of Trump, but where exactly the boundaries of the system lie when several things happen at the same time.

Tokenization of political brands—the influence of public figures is directly converted into a financial asset, with 80% of its supply controlled by affiliated entities. The size of one's token holdings becomes a ticket to access those in power, and the quality of that access is positively correlated with the amount invested. The entire mechanism's profit structure continuously feeds transaction fees to the issuer while retail investors suffer massive losses.

Each of these three things, taken individually, can be justified. But when placed within the same framework, the resulting structure transcends the issue of a meme coin.

It's a prototype for a question: in the next cycle, with more politicians, public brands, and AI-generated narratives, will similar mechanisms reappear? Will going on-chain make it more transparent, or just make it move faster?

The world of memecoins is short-lived. The problems with the system are long-lasting.

What analysts should note most about $TRUMP is not how much it has risen or fallen, but that it has, for the first time, clearly written a power distribution mechanism that was originally operating in the shadows into the token contract and website legal terms under such a public spotlight.

Clear and obvious.

However, not many people read those few lines of text on the night they bought the shares.

(Image caption) The same token can lead to two completely different outcomes: on one hand, a large number of retail investors suffer small losses, while on the other hand, a few related parties and large investors enjoy fee income, token advantage, and exit capabilities. This is precisely where institutional analysis needs to break it down.

⸻

GFM Core Observations

In the era of emotional finance, the entry ticket is the story, but the final settlement always comes back to the structure. $TRUMP meme coins provide a rare case: supply is highly concentrated in related entities, transaction fees flow in continuously, and political access opportunities are linked to the size of token holdings—three dimensions coexist in the same container.

For analysts looking to navigate the next cycle, $TRUMP is more than just a piece of crypto history; it's a slice of institutional history. It serves as a reminder to the market: any asset ignited by emotion deserves a quick glance at the last few lines of legal disclosures and a question etched in history—

Who has the faucet?

⸻

Disclaimer

The data, reports, and third-party analyses cited in this article are all from publicly verifiable information sources, including but not limited to public reports from organizations such as Chainalysis, CryptoRank, Fortune, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, and the Washington Post. GFM does not independently verify or guarantee the accuracy and completeness of the above sources.

The cryptocurrency market is extremely volatile, and investors can suffer significant losses, even losing their entire principal, in a very short period of time. Meme-like assets, in particular, lack the fundamental support of traditional financial assets; their price movements are highly dependent on market sentiment, community buzz, and the decisions of the issuer, making them far riskier than general investment categories.

The companies, individuals, and projects mentioned in this article are based on publicly available information for institutional analysis. This does not represent GFM's positive or negative evaluation of any party, nor does it constitute a determination of any legal liability.

Before making any investment decisions, readers should conduct thorough research and consult with qualified professional financial and legal advisors.

80% Supply: Power Map of $TRUMP Meme Coins