Written by: Blockhead

Translated by: Luffy, Foresight News

The Truth API, a data licensing product launched by the Trump Media Group, welcomed paying institutional clients just a week after its launch; however, at the same time, the company’s Bitcoin treasury assets have lost over 500 million dollars. Congress has sent two letters to the SEC regarding this matter, but has yet to receive any substantial response.

Significant Shrinkage of Bitcoin Assets

According to on-chain analytics firm Lookonchain, citing data from Arkham, last weekend, wallets associated with the Trump Media Group transferred 2,628 Bitcoins to Crypto.com, amounting to approximately 165 million dollars. Lookonchain reported that since the company launched its Bitcoin treasury program, it has transferred out a total of 7,281 Bitcoins, which, based on an average price of 74,855 dollars, amounts to about 545 million dollars.

The Trump Media Group does not agree with this interpretation. A company spokesperson told The Block that these Bitcoins were merely "transfers, not sales," and that the company used the same rationale during a similar on-chain event in May of this year. On-chain data can only confirm that assets were moved to Crypto.com and does not prove that assets have been sold for cash.

This distinction is materially significant. The remaining Bitcoins in wallets labeled with the company's tag are about 4,261, almost exactly matching the 4,260.73 Bitcoins disclosed in the company’s Q1 10-Q financial report as collateral for convertible notes as of March 31. According to that filing, the company is unable to withdraw or dispose of this pledged Bitcoin until it meets the terms of the loan agreement, and the relevant restrictions will not be lifted until the note matures on May 29, 2028. If the assets in the marked wallet are indeed the pledged collateral, then the Bitcoin position available for free disposal by the Trump Media Group may be close to zero.

However, the entry cost is an undeniable fact. As Blockhead reported when the treasury plan was announced in May 2025: the Trump Media Group raised 2.5 billion dollars (1.5 billion dollars in equity, 1 billion dollars in convertible notes), fully following the model of Michael Saylor's Strategy, buying 11,542 Bitcoins at a total cost of around 1.37 billion dollars, with an average price of 118,522 dollars per coin. Their Q1 financial report shows that as of March 31, the balance sheet held 9,542.16 Bitcoins with a cost of 1.13 billion dollars; another 2,000 Bitcoins were used as collateral for covered call options.

Since then, Bitcoin prices have fallen from the October 2025 peak of about 126,080 dollars to around 63,000 dollars, nearly halving. CoinDesk's on-chain calculations show that the Trump Media Group has realized losses of about 318 million dollars on its Bitcoin holdings and unrealized losses of 237 million dollars, totaling about 555 million dollars in line with Lookonchain's estimate. Both sets of data have not been confirmed by the company, and both assume that exchange transfers were completed at market price, which the Trump Media Group has denied.

Regardless of how the recent transfers are ultimately classified, the Q1 financial report has clearly reflected the asset damage. The Trump Media Group disclosed a net loss of 405.9 million dollars for Q1 2026. According to the 10-Q document, 243.96 million dollars is recorded as "unrealized losses on digital assets and pledged digital assets," covering Bitcoin, Cronos, and all pledged collateral, not just Bitcoin alone. The revenue for that quarter was only 871,200 dollars, up just 6% year-over-year, indicating that compared to the severe volatility of treasury assets, the company's core business volume is very small.

Truth API has Generated Actual Business Revenue

The Truth API officially launched on August 1, and had paying clients from the start. For a company whose core media business generates less than a million dollars in quarterly revenue, this is quite rare. The product targets hedge funds and algorithmic trading firms, able to push content from Trump's personal account and nine other top Truth Social accounts within milliseconds of posts. The highest monthly subscription fee is 100,000 dollars, but if a three-year contract is signed, the monthly fee can be reduced to 60,000 dollars. At least five institutional clients signed contracts before the launch, including trading firms and financial news institutions, according to reports.

To do a simple calculation: an annual subscription at full price can reach up to 1.2 million dollars, surpassing the company’s entire quarterly revenue. If there are five fully-paying clients, it could bring in 500,000 dollars per month, totaling 6 million dollars annually. While the absolute figure is not massive, this is Trump Media Group's first product with a growth logic that does not rely on the cryptocurrency market.

The market has provided feedback. DJT's stock price has risen by about 48% since its historical low of 6.96 dollars on June 26, closing at 10.38 dollars on July 30. Forbes estimates this round of increase has added 600 million dollars to Trump's net worth, largely derived from his stake in Trump Media Group held through the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, with Donald Trump Jr. serving as the trustee; Forbes assesses his total personal wealth at 6.5 billion dollars.

The pace of the stock price increase is highly correlated with the Truth API's announcement and launch, diverging from the downward trend of Bitcoin prices. This indicates that the market pricing logic has viewed this data service, rather than the Bitcoin treasury or the social platform itself, as the next core catalytic factor for the company.

Controversies Over Insider Trading Emerge

The Truth API is not an ordinary market data product. It sells the right to access posts from the sitting president and his core allies, which have previously stirred market activity. On June 10, Trump posted mentioning Citigroup's stock code, and on that day, Citigroup's stock outperformed the market; in July, he posted about the breakdown of negotiations for a memorandum of understanding with Iran, which led to a drop in Bitcoin; in April 2025, he posted about halting tariffs, which directly caused fluctuations in major indices.

Democratic members of both houses of Congress have asked the SEC to investigate this matter, but have received no substantial response. On July 20, Congressman Ritchie Torres wrote to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, requesting that the commission evaluate the product under insider trading, market manipulation, and brokerage-related rules, and work in coordination with the CFTC and the government ethics office, just four days after the Truth API was announced. On July 28, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Adam Schiff followed up with a joint letter, stating that the product is "a heinous act of abusing presidential office for personal gain."

Both letters cited the same key fact: Trump holds approximately 41% of the Trump Media Group's shares, directly confirmed by the 10-Q financial statements. The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust has held 114.75 million shares since December 2024; the financial report cover showed that as of May 6, 2026, there were a total of 276,953,828 shares outstanding, calculated to give a shareholding ratio of 41.4%. It is circulated in the market that the 52% shareholding ratio is outdated data, which was the shareholding ratio of the trust before the dilution of equity financing in 2025, providing funds for the Bitcoin treasury. This means that each Truth API subscription revenue will have a portion flowing back to the trust.

This is not the first time Trump's personal cryptocurrency interests have conflicted with his public office. In May of this year, Blockhead reported that during negotiations over the CLARITY Act, the ethical provisions restricting the president's personal cryptocurrency businesses were a focal point of contention. Disclosed documents from the same month indicated that from TRUMP meme coins to World Liberty Financial-related businesses, the Trump family's earnings in the cryptocurrency domain have surpassed 1 billion dollars.

The SEC confirmed receipt of the two congressional letters but has not made any further public statements a week after the product launch. This aligns with the situation Blockhead observed earlier this year: Paul Atkins was appointed by Trump, and the last Democrat commissioner at the SEC had stepped down shortly before, leaving no dissenting voices within the agency regarding crypto-related regulations.

The two letters did not prevent the product from being launched; the Truth API went live on schedule and already has clients signed. The Trump Media Group's chief legal counsel denied any allegations of insider trading, stating that this service merely accelerates the speed of public information transmission. However, this statement did not address the core concerns of the legislators: the key issue is not whether the information is confidential, but whether there is a time lag for information to reach different groups.

Historically, there have been two closest reference cases, both ending similarly. In 2013, Thomson Reuters Group provided high-end paying clients with a two-second advance of the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index, with a maximum monthly fee of 6,025 dollars; subsequently, the New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office halted this service. In February 2014, under similar pressure, Business Wire terminated its direct data stream service aimed at high-frequency trading firms.

The pricing of Truth API is about 16 times that of the University of Michigan's data service; and unlike past cases, the entity selling the insider information stream is precisely the highest authority of the regulatory agency.

Two Bets, Two Completely Different Outcomes

The Trump Media Group is staging a real-world contrast experiment to test how to commercialize the social influence of the presidency.

The Bitcoin treasury is betting on an asset that the company cannot control, with paper losses exceeding 500 million dollars. Furthermore, if the collateral calculation holds, the company will have almost no Bitcoins left to sell before 2028.

The Truth API bets on something the company can influence: the frequency of Trump's posts and the market impact of those posts. This business has already been established; it represents a more sustainable narrative, and its ultimate direction will likely be determined by the SEC rather than the market.