Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, is launching his own cryptocurrency built directly around the controversial laptop that became a flashpoint of the 2020 presidential election.
Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, is launching his own cryptocurrency built directly around the controversial laptop that became a flashpoint of the 2020 presidential election.
The token, called $LAPTOP, is scheduled to debut September 9 on Base, the Ethereum layer-2 blockchain network created by Coinbase Global, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter.
How the Announcement Unfolded
The Journal first reported the launch Monday morning. Shortly afterward, Biden confirmed the news himself, posting “$LAPTOP” alongside a September 9 launch date on X, accompanied by a compilation video featuring news outlets and Trump administration officials referencing the laptop saga over the years. The announcement transforms one of the most politically weaponized personal scandals of the past decade into a tradeable digital asset.
The Laptop’s Origin Story
The laptop at the center of the controversy was dropped off at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, in April 2019. The shop’s owner later provided its contents to the FBI, which formally seized the device roughly five months later. The laptop reportedly contained emails, financial documents, and business records, along with explicit personal photos and images appearing to show Biden using drugs. The device and its contents became a major media flashpoint in conservative-leaning outlets in the run-up to the 2020 election, fueling extensive political commentary and investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Biden’s legal team has previously stated that the files were manipulated, disputing the authenticity of some material that circulated publicly. Biden himself has continued discussing the episode candidly on social media, Substack, and various podcast appearances in recent months. In a June post on X, he wrote: “What they found was evidence of a man who suffered for a period of time from a severe addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol,” adding that federal prosecutors ultimately found no evidence of corruption or criminal activity beyond matters related to his drug use.
Biden’s Crypto Advocacy
The memecoin launch follows a period of increasingly vocal public support for digital assets from Biden. He has previously argued on X that Congress needs “to truly understand the value and potential utility of cryptocurrency,” and separately described “decentralized digital currency” as “the inevitable future” — positioning himself, at least rhetorically, as a crypto advocate ahead of his own token launch.
Token Structure and Distribution
According to details of the launch, $LAPTOP will have a total supply of 1 billion tokens. The distribution plan allocates 30% to the project’s founders, subject to a vesting schedule restricting when those tokens can be sold, while another 20% will be distributed via airdrops to selected cryptocurrency holders and newsletter or platform subscribers. The project has also outlined plans to burn — permanently remove from circulation — up to 30% of the total token supply if specific political or market-related milestones are met, though the precise nature of those milestones has not been fully detailed publicly.
Notably, Pump.fun, a popular Solana-based token launch platform, initially published a post referencing the $LAPTOP launch before subsequently deleting it — a detail that has fueled speculation among crypto observers about the platform’s level of involvement or its decision to distance itself from the project.
Part of a Broader Trend of Political Memecoins
Biden’s launch places him within a growing category of politically branded cryptocurrencies that has gained significant traction since early 2025, most notably the $TRUMP token. That coin, built on the Solana blockchain, launched in January 2025 just ahead of Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration, announced via Truth Social and X on January 17-18, 2025. Its branding drew directly on imagery from the July 2024 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, featuring the president with a raised fist alongside the phrase “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.”
Of the token’s 1 billion total supply, 200 million coins were released publicly in the initial offering, while Trump-affiliated companies retained the remaining 800 million. First Lady Melania Trump subsequently launched a companion token of her own. $TRUMP’s price trajectory has been extremely volatile: the token peaked between $73 and $75 shortly after its January 2025 launch, before falling to an all-time low of $1.37 on August 13, 2026. As of recent trading, the token sits around $2.27 — still down sharply from its early highs, though well above its 2026 low point.
The $TRUMP token has drawn sustained criticism from ethics experts and political observers, who argue that a sitting president profiting from a personally branded cryptocurrency creates a severe conflict of interest, potentially allowing wealthy individuals and foreign entities to purchase direct financial access to the presidency through token purchases.
Why This Launch Matters
Biden’s decision to launch $LAPTOP represents an unusual reversal: rather than distancing himself from a scandal that dogged both his father’s presidency and his own public image, Biden appears to be directly monetizing it, leaning into the very controversy that critics used against him for years.
The move mirrors a broader pattern in which polarizing political figures and moments — regardless of which side of the political spectrum they originate from — have increasingly been repackaged as speculative crypto assets aimed at supporters, critics, and speculators alike who want exposure to the underlying cultural moment rather than any underlying business or utility.
What Comes Next
With the token set to launch September 9 on Base, market attention will likely focus on early trading volume, initial price action, and whether $LAPTOP follows a trajectory similar to $TRUMP’s extreme early volatility. Given the polarizing nature of the underlying reference and Hunter Biden’s own public profile, the launch is likely to generate significant media attention and mixed reactions from both crypto traders and political commentators, regardless of how the token ultimately performs in the market.
