Hunter Biden launched a new meme coin named $LAPTOP on the Base blockchain network, which saw its market value surge and then crash by more than 99% within hours of its debut on Wednesday, according to reporting by Fox Business, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Business Insider.
The token, created on Coinbase’s Base network, takes its name from the laptop that became a prominent political focus during the 2020 presidential campaign after the New York Post first reported on its contents. According to The Wall Street Journal, the project’s founders were slated to receive 30% of the 1-billion-token supply, with those allocations locked for six months and becoming fully available over two years.
### Launch-Day Price Volatility and Market Mechanics
Trading data reviewed by the New York Post showed that $LAPTOP experienced extreme price swings shortly after its Wednesday launch. According to blockchain analysis from Datavault AI cited by the New York Post, the token briefly spiked from $2.39 to $316 per token before collapsing.
Hunter Biden addressed the dramatic price movement in a video posted to X just after midnight Friday, stating that a market maker supplied only $5,000 in initial liquidity.
“There was a f–k up,” Biden said in the video, as reported by the New York Post. “The f–k-up occurred in the first 30 seconds of launching the coin, in which the market maker, for some unknown goddamn reason, only put in $5,000 of liquidity. And the demand was through the roof.”
Joni Zhuleku, co-founder and head of research at crypto investment firm Altcoin Pro, told the New York Post that Biden’s explanation for the brief price spike was plausible due to the exceptionally thin liquidity pool. Zhuleku explained that a small purchase in a shallow pool can drastically distort the quoted price of a token. However, Zhuleku disputed Biden’s claim that the project was under control, noting that the token’s price remained down 99% from its all-time high.
### Investor Losses and Large Trades
The rapid collapse left a majority of retail buyers nursing financial losses. According to blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps cited by the New York Post, approximately 80% of traders who bought $LAPTOP on launch day lost money, with more than 15,000 wallets ending the day in the red.
Data from Datavault AI highlighted a stark contrast in trading outcomes. One anonymous trader used approximately $250,000 to acquire 9,124 tokens and sold 8,480 of them minutes later for about $1.18 million, securing a gross gain of roughly $930,000 before transaction costs. Conversely, another buyer who invested approximately $200,000 near the peak saw that position dwindle to roughly $2,000, according to Datavault AI figures reported by the New York Post.
Nathaniel Bradley, CEO of Datavault AI, characterized the trading pattern to the New York Post as a classic “rug pull,” a term describing scenarios where value is extracted or abandoned by insiders, though neither Bradley nor blockchain analysts established that Biden personally sold tokens during the crash. The exact financial proceeds Biden received from the launch remain unverified, as founder token allocations were locked under the project’s tokenomics structure.
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