LAPTOP is a meme coin named after the personal computer that has trailed Hunter Biden through American politics since 2020. A Delaware repair shop handed the machine over in 2019, and the New York Post published its contents weeks before that year’s presidential election, setting off years of investigations and conspiracy theories.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the launch plans on September 7, 2026. Biden confirmed the ticker hours later in a post carrying a short video of news outlets discussing the computer, closing on the word $LAPTOP in white type on black.
LAPTOP is a token issued on Base, the layer-2 network that Coinbase built on top of Ethereum in 2023. A layer-2 settles transactions on a separate chain before posting them back to Ethereum, which makes fees cheaper and confirmations faster than transacting on Ethereum directly.
Meme coins carry no claim on revenue, assets or governance. They trade on attention, and most fall sharply within days or hours of launching.
Biden is part of the founding team rather than an endorser lending his name, the Journal reported. The team declined to comment to the newspaper.
One billion LAPTOP tokens will be issued. The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported the following split:
An airdrop is a free distribution of tokens to wallets that meet set criteria, used to seed holders at launch. Burning means sending tokens to an address nobody controls, permanently reducing supply.
The burn conditions include a Democrat winning the 2028 presidential election, Bitcoin setting another all-time high, and LAPTOP’s fully diluted valuation passing that of TRUMP. Where an event does not resolve as specified, a proportionate share of those tokens goes to charity instead.
One tranche is reserved for wallets that lost money on TRUMP, the meme coin launched by U.S. President Donald Trump in January 2025. TRUMP reached a peak market capitalization of close to $15 billion before falling to around $600 million by early September 2026, per the Journal. A coin tied to first lady Melania Trump followed a similar path.
The remaining eligible wallets belong to subscribers to Biden’s Substack and to a mailing list curated by video journalist Andrew Callaghan. Callaghan has said in a statement that he and his Channel 5 program have no involvement, adding that they “do not believe crypto is a legitimate investment.”
Biden, 56, is a disbarred former attorney and the surviving son of Joe Biden, the 46th U.S. President. A Delaware jury found him guilty of three felony firearm offenses in June 2024, and he pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges that September. His father pardoned him in December 2024, before he was sentenced in either case.
Biden said on a podcast in November 2025 that he was facing $17 million in debt from his legal fees. His former law firm, Winston & Strawn, sued him in Washington, D.C. over unpaid bills, and an April 2026 filing from his attorney told the court that Biden “lives abroad” and cannot afford to pay.
Biden gave his own reasons for entering crypto in a 2026 interview with Tucker Carlson, saying he is interested in the technology and wants “to make some money.”
LAPTOP trades on Base, so any decentralized exchange or wallet supporting that network can reach it. Meme coin platform Pump.fun promoted the token ahead of launch, advertising 0.1% trading fees, in a since-deleted tweet.
Tokens using the LAPTOP ticker appeared on several other networks within minutes of Biden’s announcement, none of them connected to the project. Check the contract address against an official source before trading.
Reaction across crypto in the days before launch ran heavily to mockery, with traders calling the launch hypocritical and warning that announcing a ticker two days early hands an advantage to automated buyers.
Whether that matters is a separate question from whether the coin trades. Celebrity meme coins have reliably drawn a first wave of buyers regardless of sentiment toward the person attached, then struggled once that wave passes and insider supply unlocks. Hailey Welch’s Hawk Tuah token reached a $491 million market capitalization before losing more than 90% of it.
Most meme coins go to zero, and do it fast, Decrypt argued in a 2024 survey of the market. Liquidity is limited, and the developers issuing tokens tend to extract it rather than reinvest.
The six-month lock on founder tokens sets the first date to watch. It expires in March 2027.
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