Hunter Biden’s $LAPTOP meme coin launched on the Base blockchain on September 9, 2026, and collapsed almost immediately, losing roughly 98% of its value within minutes. The token was named after the laptop controversy that followed Biden for years, which he said had become a symbol of “resilience, redemption and recovery” for him personally.
Trading started fast. The token’s price shot up from around $2.39 to as high as $316 on some platforms before crashing below $4, while other data feeds showed a peak closer to $190. At its brief peak, the token’s theoretical fully diluted valuation reached $144 billion, according to CoinDesk. Biden blamed the collapse on the project’s market maker, who reportedly added only $5,000 in liquidity at launch despite heavy demand. “There was a f--k up. The f--k-up occurred in the first 30 seconds of launching the coin,” Biden said in a video posted on X.
The thin liquidity produced extreme outcomes. Blockchain analysis firm Datavault AI found that one mystery trader turned roughly $250,000 into $1.18 million within minutes, a profit of about $930,000 before transaction costs. A separate buyer who put in around $200,000 near the peak was left with tokens worth just $2,000. Bubblemaps reported that about 80% of traders lost money, with more than 15,000 wallets ending in the red, though most individual losses were under $1,000. CryptoSlate added that 88 wallets earned a combined $5.6 million from the launch.
Biden said he had worked on the project for six months and was involved in every part of its creation. He added that insiders were locked up for six months and that he and his partners had not sold any tokens. He accepted responsibility and committed to staying with the project. “This is my f--king token. At the end of the day, it’s my responsibility, and there was a f--k up,” he said. He said the team was working to increase liquidity and trading volume, but he did not give details on any investor compensation, only promising to “make it right.”
The saga also spilled onto social media. The LAPTOP project’s X account was suspended, and Hunter Biden publicly asked Elon Musk to lift the ban, tagging him in a post that referenced Musk and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s warnings about AI. There is no verified evidence that Musk supported, purchased, or took any action to increase the price of LAPTOP, and no confirmed response from Musk.
