Ross Gerber does not hold back. The CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management pointed directly at President Donald Trump’s reported $1 billion-plus earnings from cryptocurrency ventures as the reason Bitcoin has struggled and shows little sign of breaking higher. “This is why Bitcoin went down and isn’t going anywhere…. the grift is real,” Gerber posted on X on July 1, 2026. The comment came hours after Trump’s financial disclosure revealed massive profits from projects tied to his name.
Those profits, according to a Wall Street Journal report, topped $1 billion in 2025. The filing showed Trump netting around $800 million from World Liberty Financial alone. Royalties from the Official Trump memecoin added more than $635 million. Yet the investors who bought in fared far worse. Data from on-chain analytics firm Nansen, cited in the Journal piece and echoed across recent coverage, tracked 1.48 million wallets that purchased the TRUMP token since its January 2025 launch. Roughly two-thirds of them sit in the red. An analysis of 26,663 secondary-market wallets for the WLFI token found 85 percent underwater.
But Gerber sees more than just bad trades. He sees a pattern that has soured the entire market. In a February 2026 interview covered by Business Insider, Gerber argued that the flood of Trump-branded and celebrity meme coins left ordinary buyers exhausted and distrustful. The Trump coin shed about 80 percent of its value over the past year. Similar drops hit Melania-linked tokens and WLFI. “Normal investors are left holding the bag while celebrity boosters get rich,” Gerber told the publication. Demand for legitimate crypto assets dries up when newcomers lose money fast. Without fresh capital, Bitcoin cannot sustain upward momentum.
The numbers back the fatigue. Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $126,000 in early October 2025 before sliding sharply. A threatened tariff on China that month triggered the drop, according to economists cited in The Street. By mid-2026 the asset traded well below its pre-inauguration levels from late 2024. Gerber’s latest remarks, reported Tuesday by Yahoo Finance, tie that performance explicitly to the perception of self-dealing at the highest level.
Critics piled on quickly. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz labeled Trump “the most corrupt president in American history” in his own July 1 post. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has called for tougher legislation to block presidents and their families from profiting off digital assets while in office. A White House spokesperson pushed back, telling Benzinga that every administration decision serves “the best interest of the American people” and that no conflicts exist. Trump himself said the investments run through independent institutions with which he maintains no direct contact. “I have a lot of money,” he added. “I give it to institutions that then determine how it is allocated.”
Gerber, long known for his outspoken views on markets and technology, manages billions for clients at Gerber Kawasaki. His firm built a reputation after the 2008 crisis by questioning conventional financial wisdom. That same skepticism now targets the intersection of presidential power and speculative tokens. In follow-up comments covered by Benzinga just two days ago, he described the situation as a “rug pull” that hurt more than one million people while the president profited. The language is blunt. So is the data.
And the damage runs deeper than single tokens. Meme-coin launches tied to politicians and celebrities create boom-and-bust cycles that scare off serious participants. Gerber noted similar failures with tokens linked to former New York Mayor Eric Adams and other high-profile figures. Each collapse reduces trust. Each round of losses shrinks the pool of potential buyers for Bitcoin itself. Looser regulation under the current administration, which dropped several Securities and Exchange Commission cases against crypto firms and signed the GENIUS Act, has not reversed the trend. If anything, Gerber suggests, it has amplified the perception that the market operates as a casino rigged for insiders.
Bitcoin began 2025 near $87,000 and briefly topped $102,000 around the inauguration. Optimistic forecasts from figures such as Chamath Palihapitiya, who predicted $500,000 by late 2025, or Tim Draper, who eyed $250,000, failed to materialize. By the end of that year Bitcoin closed near $87,000 again. Early 2026 brought no sustained recovery. The Street report highlighted how even pro-crypto voices inside the administration, including Eric Trump, missed the mark on price targets.
Gerber’s criticism lands at a moment when policy debates continue in Congress. Discussions over a national Bitcoin reserve and clearer digital-asset rules have stalled amid ethics concerns. Watchdogs argue that a sitting president earning hundreds of millions from tokens bearing his name creates unavoidable conflicts. Trump’s team maintains separation between his personal holdings and official actions. The financial disclosure, however, makes the scale impossible to ignore.
Investors who bought the TRUMP memecoin at its peak of roughly $73 lost 97 percent by recent trading levels near $1.70. WLFI fell from an all-time high of $0.33 to below $0.06. Those percentages represent real money for many retail participants who entered with a few thousand dollars. The largest buyers, according to Nansen, risked millions. Few have recovered.
So what happens next? Gerber offers no price target. He simply states the obvious. When the most visible promoter in the space appears to cash out while his audience absorbs steep losses, confidence evaporates. Bitcoin does not disappear. It simply stops advancing. The grift, in his view, explains why.
Recent coverage from The Street and Benzinga shows Gerber doubling down. He referenced the same Wall Street Journal investigation in multiple posts, pointing to the Nansen wallet data as proof that everyday buyers bore the cost. Market observers note that similar dynamics played out in past cycles when celebrity endorsements drove froth. This time the celebrity also occupies the Oval Office. The overlap raises questions regulators have yet to answer fully.
Gerber’s firm has historically favored transparent, fundamentals-driven investments. His early support for Tesla and criticism of opaque financial products made him a recognizable voice. That background lends weight when he calls out what he sees as exploitation in crypto. Others in traditional finance echo the concern, though few match his directness.
Trump’s shift on Bitcoin tells its own story. In 2021 he called the asset a “scam” that threatened the dollar. By the 2024 campaign he embraced it, promising a strategic reserve and friendlier rules. Post-election actions included an executive order exploring a Bitcoin stockpile and reduced enforcement against industry players. Supporters hailed the pivot. Gerber sees the financial outcome as the real motive.
The market, meanwhile, waits. Bitcoin hovers. Meme coins tied to politics continue to launch and fade. New participants hesitate. And the investor who once bet boldly on innovation now warns that the biggest name in American politics may have chilled the very sector he once championed. The numbers, the wallet data, the price charts all tell the same tale. When leaders profit and followers lose, belief fades fast. Bitcoin went down. Whether it goes anywhere from here depends on whether the perception of grift can be overcome.
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