On September 9, Hunter Biden, the son of former U.S. President Joe Biden, launched the LAPTOP memecoin on the Base network. The token began trading after a September 7 report by The Wall Street Journal and confirmation of the ticker and launch date, which Biden had announced on X.
The price initially surged to $191 within the first two minutes before falling to $3.70 within an hour. One hour after trading began, the token was worth around $4.77, down 98% from its intraday high.
With 350 million of its 1 billion fixed-supply tokens in circulation, the token’s market capitalization stood at around $1.6B one hour after launch. Its fully diluted valuation reached as high as $4.8B, while liquidity at launch stood at around $2.5M.
Why LAPTOP?
The token is a reference to Hunter Biden’s MacBook, which became central to one of the major political scandals of the 2020 presidential campaign. In 2019, the laptop was left at a repair shop, and in October 2020, The New York Post published emails from its drive related to Hunter’s overseas business interests.
Particular attention was drawn to emails about his work on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma. In one of them, a company adviser thanked Hunter for arranging a meeting with his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden. The materials became part of broader allegations that Hunter used his father’s famous name to advance his business interests. However, the documents themselves did not prove that Joe Biden traded government decisions or his office.
The laptop also became a symbol of Hunter’s personal problems: the drive contained photos, correspondence, and videos related to his drug addiction and a period of serious personal turmoil.
The story also gave rise to the political slogan and meme Where’s Hunter? — a demand from Donald Trump, who was competing against Joe Biden, and his supporters for Hunter to publicly answer the allegations.
In his announcement of the LAPTOP token, Hunter put a new spin on the meme.
“They weaponized the laptop. I turned it into a token. Where’s Hunter? Here I am,” he wrote.
Token Supply
The project’s founders, including Hunter Biden, were allocated 30% of the total token supply. This allocation was locked for six months, after which the tokens will gradually unlock over two years.
Another 20% of the supply is allocated to two rounds of airdrops. Recipients will include, among others, TRUMP holders who lost money on Donald Trump’s memecoin, subscribers to Hunter Biden’s Substack, and subscribers to video journalist Andrew Callaghan’s newsletter.
Up to another 30% is tied to a mechanism based on previously announced events, such as a Democratic candidate winning the 2028 presidential election, Bitcoin reaching a new all-time high, and LAPTOP’s market capitalization surpassing that of TRUMP. If the relevant condition is met, the corresponding portion of tokens is burned. If the condition is not met, those tokens will be donated to charity.
The remaining portion of the supply is intended to provide liquidity and cover operational expenses and the foundation’s treasury.