The Hunter Biden LAPTOP memecoin collapsed by roughly 98% within an hour of its launch, falling from a peak of $190.81 to as low as $3.70, according to Yahoo Finance.
Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, had announced the token earlier this week. It trades under the ticker $LAPTOP on Base, the blockchain network built by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, with a total supply of one billion tokens.
The launch was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
What is the Hunter Biden LAPTOP memecoin?
Biden promoted the token in a video post on Monday that repeatedly referenced the word “laptop”, a nod to the controversy over his computer during the 2020 presidential campaign. The token’s official launch date was set for 9 September.
According to the Journal, the founders, including Biden, will hold 30% of the token’s supply, locked for six months.
A further 20% is earmarked for two free giveaways. Recipients include people who lost money trading TRUMP, the memecoin launched by President Donald Trump in January 2025, and subscribers to Biden’s Substack newsletter. Those on a mailing list run by video journalist Andrew Callaghan were also listed as eligible, though Callaghan subsequently said he had no involvement in the token’s rollout.
Backlash and exchange pullbacks follow the LAPTOP token debut
The token drew swift criticism on X. ‘You criticize Trump for doing a scam then do one yourself,’ one user wrote. ‘And there goes your reputation back down the drain,’ said another.
Kraken, one of the largest crypto exchanges, deleted a promotional post about the token after users questioned why it was marketing another politically-linked coin. Several other platforms that had initially said they would list LAPTOP also pulled back their posts as criticism mounted.
Biden is not the first prominent figure to enter the memecoin market. In January, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the NYC Token at a Times Square press conference. Trump and first lady Melania Trump launched their own memecoins a year earlier. Both tokens fell sharply in the days after their debuts and quickly attracted accusations of being rug pulls, a crypto term for projects in which insiders sell large holdings abruptly, leaving other investors with steep losses.
The LAPTOP project was apparently intended to reframe the long-running laptop controversy by turning a source of online mockery into a tradeable asset. Biden dropped the computer off at a repair shop in Delaware in April 2019. The Federal Bureau of Investigation seized it five months later. The laptop reportedly contained information about Biden’s overseas business dealings and his private life during a period when he struggled with addiction.
The 98% price collapse within its opening hour suggests the token followed a pattern seen in earlier celebrity memecoins, where early sellers locked in gains while later buyers absorbed the losses.
