Hunter Biden launched the $LAPTOP meme coin on Coinbase’s Base blockchain on September 9, 2026, trading it from roughly $3 to over $300 before it abruptly shed nearly all its value within its first hour of trading.
The digital asset market witnessed another volatile political token debut as Hunter Biden introduced the $LAPTOP token. Built on Coinbase’s Base blockchain, the asset quickly captured speculative trading attention before experiencing a sharp and near-total collapse.
Launch Mechanics and the Initial Market Spike
The token opened at roughly $3 and experienced an immediate surge, trading at prices ranging between $190 and over $300 within its first minutes. Coinmarketcap.com data noted a starting value of $37.26 before the asset darted up to $222.75 within five minutes.
Trading volumes on Aerodrome, a decentralized exchange on Base, ranged between $5 million and $19 million in the first hour alone. At peak prices, the fully diluted valuation briefly crossed into a range of $100 billion to $200 billion against liquidity pools that held as little as $48,000, creating conditions for an almost textbook speculative blowup.
Tokenomics and Allocation Structure
Hunter Biden's laptop meme coin crashes one day after
The total supply was set at 1 billion tokens, with 350 million units, or 35%, unlocked at the token generation event. Founders and Biden held a 30% allocation of the coins issued, subject to a six-month lockup followed by a vesting schedule. Another 20% of the supply was earmarked for airdrops, sent in two batches to crypto wallets belonging to people who lost money on $TRUMP, subscribers to Hunter Biden’s Substack, and a mailing list curated by Andrew Callaghan, a video journalist. The project also incorporated charity allocations and event-linked token burns.
The Rapid Collapse and Market Reality
Gravity caught up with the asset almost immediately. Within the first hour, the token shed between 98% and 99% of its peak value, settling back into the single digits before the afternoon was out. By about 11:00 a.m. ET, it had crashed to a measly $1.86.
LAPTOP coin surges and crashes after troll origins
Market observers noted that political narrative is one of the most efficient engines for generating early speculative demand, and one of the least reliable for sustaining it. CNN senior business reporter Matt Egan tried to warn viewers about throwing money into Biden’s coin, stating that a Wall Street executive told him meme coins can be amusing, but are ultimately a really stupid investment. Regulatory attention on political tokens has been building, with regulators in multiple jurisdictions examining the structure of these launches and the incentive asymmetries they create.
Reclamation Narrative and Political Context
Earlier in the week, the younger Biden had touted the launch of the $LAPTOP meme coin, saying it was a way to reclaim a symbol that had defined news coverage about him when his father was president. He was explicit that buyers should carry no expectation of price appreciation, suggesting that the meme coin would be about building community, benefiting charity, and helping those who had lost money on the $TRUMP grift, referring to President Donald Trump’s own meme coin launch.
The coin obviously poked fun at what Trump and others have called Biden’s laptop from hell,
which was reported by the New York Post in October 2020 and immediately censored by Twitter. It quickly joined the Hall of Fame of Bad Political Meme Coin Investments, right alongside President Donald Trump’s meme coin, which is down 97% from its all-time high of $75.35; First Lady Melania Trump’s meme coin, which is down 99% from its high; and former New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ coin, which is down 87% from its high. Copycat tokens began appearing on competing chains within hours of the initial debut.
