The $10,000 Trump Trade: What Actually Made Money Since Inauguration Day

If you had invested in the right assets on Trump’s Inauguration Day, you could have doubled your portfolio.

But it wasn’t just the crypto industry that was rooting for a rally. Recall that Trump also promised to lower corporate tax rates from 21% to 15% for companies that make their product in America, eliminate taxes on tips, eliminate Social Security taxes, make car loans fully tax deductible, and much more. All this led to expectations of a booming American economy, with small businesses thriving thanks to tax cuts and government support.

Although, the reality? Well, almost a year later we have the numbers, and they tell a radically different story.

Tracking a hypothetical $10,000 investment made on Inauguration Day 2025 across twelve major asset classes, the results show significant capital flight from speculative assets to traditional, tangible safe havens. What does this mean? For many – uncertainty.

The bottom line: from Inauguration Day to now

Below is the current value of a $10,000 investment, made on January 20, 2025, across a range of asset classes (and subcategories).

It’s a Supercycle, okay

We did indeed see a super cycle, but not where most of the crypto industry expected it. Don’t get me wrong, BTC hit multiple all-time highs, altcoins (or at least some of them) had their moment in the sun, but the year has undoubtedly been very different from what most analysts expected.

The rally did not come from traditionally volatile and speculative assets, but rather from the exact opposite.

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The most striking trend in the post-inauguration period is undoubtedly the dominance of precious and industrial metals. While most of the attention has been on stock indices, silver delivered a staggering 134% return. Please note, some numbers may be different by the time you read this article, as precious metals are currently behaving more or less like sh*tcoins.

But what does this mean?

Well, experts are speculating about the parabolic price increases of precious and industrial metals. Some justify the increase with fundamental factors such as increasing global uncertainty surrounding the war between Russia and Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East, the Trump-led policy of slapping tariffs on virtually every country, demand for certain metals to produce graphics chips due to the booming AI sector, and much more. Recently a report from the BBC explained that the supply of silver (as the most dominant performer in the selected period) is growing because of:

• It is used in various industries, such as the production of electric vehicles and solar panels
• The fear that Trump will impose import duties on this
• Inability to quickly increase supply

Remember that most of these are natural resources and not products, meaning there is a finite supply of them. Although the supply of silver is estimated to be at least ten times that of gold, most of the world’s production is a byproduct of mines that mainly extract other metals, making it more difficult to meet increasing demand.

Gold is also up about 60%. Never before has the precious metal achieved such an impressive performance over a twelve-month period.

And while many experts find reasons behind the fundamentals, others believe the markets are pricing in rising inflation and uncertainty, treating silver trading as a beta for gold, which started rising much earlier. In other words, some are already preparing for impact.

In any case, the “Trump Trade” in 2025 turned out to be a commodity trade rather than a technology trade.

The Surprising Loser: Speculation is waning

Donald Trump promised a lot of things to cryptocurrency advocates in an attempt to win them over, and to some extent it worked. Many in the industry were in favor of him, and frankly we have seen a lot of fundamental progress, especially on the legislative front.

From a hawkish SEC that legislated through enforcement, the US currently has a government that is actively working on adequate bills. In July, the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets published a comprehensive roadmap to strengthen the country’s leadership in digital assets, calling for swift implementation of the GENIUS Act, modernizing AML legislation, introducing laws targeting market structure, and more.

Both regulatory heavyweights have reversed their stance to the CFTC and the SEC, while the government is also an official “HODLer” because of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve – something Trump signed an executive order for in March.

And despite all of the above, price action has been nothing but disappointing in recent months, ultimately leading to the negative performance since Inauguration Day.

I read a tweet saying that at $90,000, Bitcoin feels like we’re at $10,000, and indeed, sentiment is near an all-time low.

And this is why:

Crypto prices since Trump took office: $BTC: -18% $ETH: -10% $XRP: -42% $SOL: -52% $DOGE: -68% $ADA: -65% $LINK: -47% $AVAX: -68% $SUI: -71% $TON: -72% $ THIS: -75% $PEPE: -78% $APT: -83% $TRUMP: -82%

Thank you, MR chairman.

— Crypto Rover (@cryptorover) December 25, 2025

Regardless of the reasons, it is clear that money is flowing out of speculative assets.

The real alpha this year was in the metals. A portfolio allocated to a basket of silver, gold, platinum and palladium would more than double in value in twelve months.