Hunter Biden to launch LAPTOP meme, stokes Trump family rivalry with airdrop plans

Hunter Biden is part of the founding team behind a new meme coin called LAPTOP, set to go live on the Coinbase-built Base network on Sept. 9 with one billion tokens. 

A portion of the supply is reportedly reserved for traders who lost money on President Donald Trump’s TRUMP coin. 

Cashing in on TRUMP losses

The LAPTOP team, which Hunter Biden is a part of, has pledged that out of its one billion supply, 20% is earmarked for two airdrop rounds. Notably, the LAPTOP name references the laptop saga that dogged Biden through the 2020 campaign. 

Individuals who took a loss on TRUMP are eligible for the drop, but so are Substack subscribers of Biden, his friends, and people on a mailing list kept by video journalist Andrew Callaghan. 

Nansen data reported by TechCrunch in July found that 988,905 wallets, roughly two in three TRUMP buyers, were down a combined $3.81 billion by the end of June. 

TRUMP debuted three days before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, spiked toward $75, then crashed rapidly. The president, for his part, disclosed $636 million tied to the coin and at least $1.4 billion in crypto income for 2025.

Beyond the 20% allocated for airdrops, the founding team takes 30% of the supply, which they will hold for six months and then release gradually over a two-year period.

Another 20% has been set aside for charity, liquidity, exchange partners, and market makers, with part of it covering the accounting, legal, and compliance costs of running the token foundation. 

Is it safe to buy Biden’s LAPTOP meme token?

The plan for LAPTOP has a strange provision that allows up to 30% of its supply to be destroyed permanently. This burning feature depends on 30 preset events that each carry a deadline. 

Triggers include Bitcoin printing a fresh all-time high, LAPTOP’s fully diluted valuation climbing past TRUMP’s, and a Democratic win in the 2028 presidential election. However, tokens tied to conditions that never happen will get donated to charity rather than burned. 

Political meme coins have recorded sharp price swings following Trump-family announcements. For instance, TRUMP lost about 55% of its value within minutes of the MELENIA token announcement in January 2025.

Prior to the launch of LAPTOP, Biden spent months talking about crypto in public. On a revived X account, he called fiat “a sham” and the banking class “corrupt,” writing that “decentralized digital currency and the blockchain are the inevitable future.”

In an interview with Candace Owens, he said he believed in “the meme token” and would “create a community” one day.

Meanwhile, the advocacy group Public Citizen estimated in late August that investors have lost at least $4.7 billion across five Trump ventures. This figure includes $3.2 billion in losses on TRUMP and about $1 billion in losses tied to World Liberty Financial. 

Warren and Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote to SEC Chair Paul Atkins on Aug. 4, urging an investigation into whether TRUMP “facilitated any illegal fraud or unjust enrichment.” 

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