Hunter Biden says the $LAPTOP memecoin was created to satirize what he described as extractive crypto projects, including Donald Trump’s memecoin, rather than to defraud buyers. In a series of posts on X, Biden published blockchain information intended to show that wallets linked to the project’s founders had not sold their tokens after launch.
The token, inspired by the laptop that became a major political controversy involving Biden and his father, former US President Joe Biden, launched on Sept. 9. Its release drew attention after the price chart quickly rose and fell in a pattern that resembled other celebrity-linked memecoin launches.
According to Cointelegraph, Biden said 300 million $LAPTOP tokens held in wallets associated with the founders “haven’t moved since launch.” He also said the project’s two professional market-making firms benefited most during the token’s brief price peak, while rejecting claims that the project itself was a conventional rug pull.
What the blockchain data showed
Biden said $LAPTOP reached a peak of about $317 shortly after launch. He acknowledged that the chart “looked like every celebrity rug ever,” but argued that the available transaction data pointed to market makers, rather than the project founders, as the main beneficiaries of the price movement.
The two firms were not named. Biden said one earned $686,000 from liquidity positions on decentralized exchanges. The second reportedly received about $2.18 million more through trading than it spent.
A separate launch report prepared by Delaware-based intelligence consultancy Groom Lake and published on the token’s website described the timing of the liquidity withdrawals. It said Market Maker 1 removed its funds 84 seconds after the price reached its high. According to the report, the cash available to traders attempting to sell around the prevailing price fell from $16,157 to zero.
Liquidity is the pool of assets available to facilitate buying and selling. When liquidity is removed, holders may find it more difficult to sell without causing a substantial price change. That dynamic is one reason abrupt liquidity withdrawals are closely watched in memecoin markets.
Biden’s account does not eliminate the risk associated with the token’s rapid price rise and fall, but it presents his explanation for what happened and identifies the parties he says profited from the launch. The source material does not provide an independent assessment of those claims.
Biden’s stated purpose for the token
Biden said the project was intended to mock what he described as “every grift” in the memecoin market, particularly the launch of Donald Trump’s Official Trump token. He said the team aimed to be transparent, committed to locking its tokens and published a MiCA disclosure. MiCA is the European Union’s regulatory framework for crypto-assets.
He also said he intended to reserve 5% of the tokens for charity. In his posts, Biden added that he was motivated to continue the project partly to antagonize Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as key opinion leaders who had called $LAPTOP a scam because the project refused to pay them.
The team’s founder memecoins are expected to remain locked for six months after launch. Biden also said the project would continue burning tokens that were not claimed through airdrops. An airdrop is the distribution of crypto tokens to selected wallets, often without a direct purchase.
The token’s name refers to Hunter Biden’s laptop, whose existence and contents attracted intense media scrutiny before the 2020 US presidential election, when Donald Trump was running against Joe Biden. Hunter Biden has filed two lawsuits connected with the laptop over privacy laws, according to the source material.
Broader political and market context
Biden has been a vocal critic of World Liberty Financial, a crypto company associated with the Trump family. In August, he described the venture as “corruption at a scale we’ve never seen.” Donald Trump’s Official Trump memecoin, launched shortly before he took office in January 2025, has separately faced rug-pull and corruption accusations.
The controversy is continuing as the group behind the $TRUMP token prepares another event for holders. Last week, the group announced that Trump would appear at his golf club in Washington, DC, alongside three unnamed speakers and the top 185 tokenholders at a dinner scheduled for Nov. 22.
Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, estimated that investors in the $TRUMP memecoin had lost $3.2 billion since its 2025 launch. The estimate was cited in the source material and does not represent a market-price update for either token.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data at 09:13-09:14 on Oct. 8, 2026, showed the following prices and recent moves:
- Official Trump (TRUMP): $1.8660005541, down 0.35% over 24 hours and 9.87% over seven days.
- JUST (JST): $0.1392606694, down 1.09% over 24 hours but up 3.92% over seven days.
- Aptos (APT): $0.7782923711, up 1.25% over 24 hours and down 0.49% over seven days.
- OriginTrail (TRAC): $0.399890483, down 1.31% over 24 hours and 16.32% over seven days.
These figures are Moneyiar market data recorded at the stated times and are separate from the launch-period figures described for $LAPTOP.
