The crypto market absorbed two sharply contrasting developments this week: the near-total collapse of the Hunter Biden-linked $LAPTOP meme coin on Base, and a new DWF Ventures analysis showing most major digital asset treasury companies still trade below the value of their token reserves.
According to Decrypt, CoinDesk, and The Block, trading in $LAPTOP opened at 8:02 a.m. Eastern on September 9, 2026, on Coinbase’s Base layer-2 network. The token printed a peak of $190.81 about two minutes later, implying a fully diluted valuation near $144 billion, despite a launch liquidity pool of only about $48,000. Within an hour, the price had fallen roughly 97.5% to about $4.77, then slid to around $1.97 by the afternoon. By late September it traded near $0.07315, with a market capitalization of about $25.79 million and a seven-day decline of 71.6%. One wallet reportedly turned $249,800 into approximately $1.18 million within minutes, while most early buyers were wiped out.
The token’s published supply is one billion units. A 30% founder allocation is locked for six months and then vests over more than two years. Its day-one airdrop allocated 2% to wallets that had lost money on Donald Trump’s TRUMP token and 8% to Hunter Biden’s Substack subscribers, with a further 10% reserved for distribution at the discretion of the Phoenix Veritas Foundation. Centralized exchanges including KuCoin, Gate, and Kraken later quoted the token. Base founder Jesse Pollak defended the network’s permissionless nature, while Kraken removed a promotional post after trader backlash. The SEC’s February 2025 staff guidance that meme coins are generally not securities remains the relevant U.S. regulatory backdrop, though Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw has publicly dissented.
Meanwhile, DWF Ventures found that only four of the 20 largest digital asset treasury companies by assets under management trade at a premium to their crypto holdings. Most show a market-value-to-net-asset-value ratio, or mNAV, below 1, meaning their shares are valued at less than the tokens they hold. The calculation excludes debt and preferred stock, so the report cautions investors to examine those obligations separately.
Since July, some treasury stocks outperformed their underlying tokens by 15% to 40% as mNAV ratios rose from roughly 0.5–0.8 to 0.7–1.0. Hyperliquid-focused PURR and Zcash-focused CYPH recorded returns 31% and 38% above their respective tokens. However, over most periods longer than three months, the underlying token remained the stronger performer. The report says financing terms, operating income, and management decisions are becoming more important for valuation. Examples include Strategy’s Bitcoin treasury and convertible debt usage, Strive’s purchase of 469 BTC using preferred stock proceeds, and BitMine’s large staked Ether position of more than 5.06 million ETH out of roughly 5.98 million ETH.
The combined picture is cautionary: memecoin launches with thin liquidity can create misleading valuations and severe losses, while publicly traded crypto treasury vehicles continue to trade on execution and capital structure rather than simply tracking their token holdings.
