Trump Bought Coinbase Stock in July and Sold Some of It on August 10. The Same Day, He Bought More Strategy. Here Is What Both Have Done Since. Sam Daodu Mon, October 12, 2026 at 4:00 PM EDT 6 min read COIN +0.56% MSTR -1.08% BTC-USD -0.74% CRCL -0.76% NVDA -1.29% Trade COIN on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Trump swapped Coinbase shares for Strategy on August 10; Strategy then surged 59% versus Coinbase's 21% gain, making his purchase the better call.
Both crypto trades were valued between just $1,001 and $15,000, far too small to influence Coinbase, Strategy, or Bitcoin prices.
Trump's August filing also disclosed a SpaceX notes purchase in the range of $1M to $5M and a Meta stock buy in the range of $5M to $25M, dwarfing his crypto trades.
Building a portfolio and living off one are two completely different skills, and almost nobody teaches the second. This problem is what The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income helps, and it is free today. Read more here. (Sponsor)
Recent ethics filings from President Donald Trump show he sold shares of Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) and bought shares of Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR) on August 10, 2026. Both trades fall within the smallest reporting band of $1,001 to $15,000. An earlier filing noted that Trump also bought both stocks in July, suggesting this latest Coinbase sale was part of a quick trading cycle.
Since these transactions, both stocks have seen growth. Strategy's share price surged 58.6% from its August 10 close to its October 9 close, while Coinbase's shares rose 20.7%. This suggests that the stock Trump purchased has outperformed the one he sold.
Trump's filing included 517 transactions reported through a Form 278-T, which senior officials file with the Office of Government Ethics to disclose their financial trades. The report is dated September 17 and was made public on October 8, covering transactions made entirely in August.
These filings report trades as dollar ranges rather than specific amounts. For example, a trade listed in the range of $1,001 to $15,000 could be any amount within that range. Below is a summary of Trump's crypto-related trades alongside his more significant transactions.
Many successful investors eventually reach the same moment. The saving is done, the portfolio is built, and the question quietly changes from how much can I grow this to how much can I take out? Get that second question wrong and decades of good investing can come apart in a handful of years.
That is exactly what The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income helps answer. It covers what your retirement could actually cost, which income sources are worth using, and the withdrawal math that decides whether the money lasts. It is free today from Fisher Investments. Read More Here ›
The bottom of the SpaceX band alone is more than 66 times the top of the Coinbase or Strategy band. Additionally, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) appears multiple times in the filing, with one notable purchase falling in the range of $500,001 to $1,000,000 on August 17.
The purchase of SpaceX notes is essentially a loan, not an equity stake. These notes carry a 5.35% interest rate and mature in July 2031. "Senior" means the lender gets paid before shareholders if SpaceX faces financial difficulties, while "unsecured" indicates that no specific asset backs the loan. Therefore, the investor collects interest regardless of SpaceX's performance.
The filing lacks execution prices for the trades, so we use daily closing prices for comparison. Coinbase's stock closed at $149 on August 10 and rose to $179 by October 9, indicating a gain in Trump's sold shares. However, since both trades are in a small dollar range, the gain Trump missed by selling could be relatively modest. It's unclear whether this sale completely closed Trump's Coinbase position or just reduced it.
Over a longer period, Coinbase's performance raises concerns. The stock is down 20.6% in 2026 and has plummeted 53.6% over the last year, driven largely by reduced trading and a corresponding drop in fee revenue. The second-quarter earnings report, released on July 30, missed revenue expectations because trading volumes fell and crypto market volatility decreased.
Coinbase earns revenue from trading fees charged to both retail and institutional clients. It also earns income from a share of the interest on the reserves backing USDC (CRYPTO:USDC), a stablecoin issued by Circle Internet Group (NYSE:CRCL). Other revenue sources include staking rewards, Coinbase One subscriptions, the Base blockchain, and derivatives from its August 2025 acquisition of Deribit.
In contrast, Strategy's share price increased from $97 on August 10 to $154 by October 9. Despite a 16.6% gain over the past month, Strategy's stock is still down 51.7% over the past year.
The company holds Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) on its balance sheet and finances its purchases by selling stock, while maintaining a traditional enterprise software business. In short, Coinbase profits from trading activity, while the value of Strategy's shares largely hinges on the price of the Bitcoin it holds.
Form 278-T outlines the trades but omits the reasoning behind them. It does not specify who made the decisions, whether Trump himself made the choices, or whether an external manager directed the trades.
Neither Coinbase nor Strategy announced any specific deals related to these trades. The companies did not disclose a settlement asset or require customers to use a particular token, and the filing mentions no specific token.
No, the amount involved in the trades—between $1,001 and $15,000—is too small to influence the stock prices of Coinbase or Strategy, or the price of Bitcoin. USDC is designed to maintain a stable dollar value, so even significant news about Coinbase is unlikely to change its worth. For Strategy, the company's stock price is influenced by fluctuations in Bitcoin's value, not the other way around.
Since mid-August, Bitcoin has also seen price increases, but trading within this low dollar range is unlikely to affect broader market movements.
(Sponsor) Most people spend their entire working lives focusing on one thing: growing a pile of money. Then they retire and discover the skill they actually need is close to the opposite. Turning that pile into steady income, year after year, through good markets and bad, without ever running out.
It may be the least discussed and most consequential transition in personal finance, and plenty of otherwise careful investors walk into it with no real plan. That is exactly what The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income helps answer. It is a free guide from Fisher Investments covering what your retirement will really cost, where the cash flow should come from, and how much you can safely withdraw each year. Learn more here. Learn More Here ›
Contact editorial@247wallst.com for any questions or corrections.
