- The Math Behind the Losses: Buying the Top, Selling the Bottom
- Politics vs. the Market: Conflict of Interest and the SEC Investigation
- Why Crypto.com Was Chosen
- Lessons in Corporate Treasury Management
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the company behind the Truth Social platform, has found itself at the center of one of the biggest corporate controversies of 2026. Amid record financial losses, the company has begun liquidating a significant portion of its cryptocurrency treasury.
In early August, blockchain analysts detected a transfer of 2,628 BTC—worth approximately $165 million at current market prices—to Crypto.com. The transaction marked another phase of a broader liquidation strategy: over the past seven months, TMTG has moved a total of 7,281 BTC to cryptocurrency exchanges. Rather than capitalizing on Bitcoin’s historic bull run, however, the media company founded by the U.S. president has incurred massive financial losses.
The Math Behind the Losses: Buying the Top, Selling the Bottom
Trump Media’s Bitcoin investment has become a textbook example of violating one of the oldest trading principles: “Buy the rumor, sell the news.”
Buying at the peak: In late July 2025, the company announced plans to invest up to $2.5 billion in Bitcoin. By December 2025, its treasury had grown to approximately 12,000 BTC, acquired at an average purchase price of $118,522 per coin.
The turning point: Bitcoin reached its cycle high of approximately $126,000 in October 2025 before entering a prolonged downtrend.
The liquidation: TMTG began selling its holdings in February 2026, after Bitcoin had already fallen below $70,000, and continued selling throughout the summer. The company’s average selling price was just $74,855 per BTC.
According to estimates from Lookonchain and Bloomberg, TMTG’s combined realized and unrealized losses have reached approximately $555 million. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, the company reported a net loss of $405.9 million, with the revaluation of its digital asset holdings accounting for a substantial portion of that figure.
At this point, the company’s freely tradable Bitcoin reserves are nearly exhausted. Of the remaining 4,261 BTC, most have been pledged as collateral for convertible notes and are expected to remain locked until at least May 2028. As a result, the company has effectively been forced to sell its remaining liquid holdings near market lows to fund ongoing operating expenses.
Politics vs. the Market: Conflict of Interest and the SEC Investigation
The Bitcoin sell-off coincided with the launch of Truth API, a new commercial product that provides institutional clients with real-time access to Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts with millisecond latency. Subscription fees reportedly reach $100,000 per month.
Financial markets have long reacted to the president’s social media activity. A single post can send Bitcoin lower by announcing new sanctions or boost the share price of a company such as Intel by mentioning a partnership with Apple. Turning that market-moving influence into a paid product has drawn sharp criticism from regulators.
In late July, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff sent a formal letter to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, urging the agency to launch an investigation.
“This appears to be a blatant abuse of presidential authority for personal financial gain that undermines the interests of ordinary investors,” the lawmakers wrote.
Particular attention has focused on Trump’s 53% ownership stake in TMTG and his ability to publish market-moving statements shortly before the company executes large transactions involving its own assets. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the SEC is currently led by a chairman appointed by Trump himself, placing the agency in a particularly sensitive position.
Why Crypto.com Was Chosen
The choice of exchange was far from accidental. In May 2025, TMTG entered into strategic partnerships with two major cryptocurrency firms.
Crypto.com was selected as the company’s primary platform for liquidity management and the execution of transactions involving part of its Bitcoin reserves.
Anchorage Digital, the only federally chartered crypto bank in the United States, serves as the custodian for the company’s core digital asset holdings.
Using regulated U.S. infrastructure helped satisfy compliance requirements, but liquidating such a large volume of Bitcoin inevitably put pressure on market liquidity. Selling more than 7,000 BTC through a single venue created the risk of significant price slippage, so the liquidation was carried out gradually over a period of roughly six months.
Lessons in Corporate Treasury Management
The Trump Media case has become a textbook example of why corporate treasury reserves should be managed according to a disciplined financial strategy rather than political messaging.
Following the crowd: The company entered the market at the height of Bitcoin enthusiasm in late 2025, after many retail investors had already begun taking profits.
No exit strategy: The large-scale liquidation was driven not by changing macroeconomic expectations but by an urgent need to raise cash and offset a quarterly loss approaching half a billion dollars.
Volatility as a business risk: For a technology company, a large allocation to a highly volatile asset became a financial burden rather than a strategic advantage. Instead of focusing on expanding Truth Social, management was forced to defend the company’s balance sheet against the declining value of its Bitcoin holdings.
Today, Trump’s media empire is attempting to offset its cryptocurrency losses by aggressively monetizing its political influence through Truth API. For the crypto community, however, the episode serves as another reminder that even the world’s most influential organizations are not immune to bear markets—and that financing large Bitcoin positions with borrowed capital or tying them to a public company’s balance sheet demands exceptional risk management and extraordinary discipline.
