Hunter Biden has defended his LAPTOP memecoin hours before its Sept. 9 launch on Base, saying 20% of the supply will be distributed through community airdrops while 30% will be tied to political, crypto and cultural predictions.
Summary
- Hunter Biden defended LAPTOP ahead of its Base launch, describing the memecoin as a way to reclaim the laptop controversy.
- LAPTOP will allocate 20% of its supply to community airdrops, including wallets that lost money holding TRUMP.
- Another 30% will be tied to political, crypto and cultural predictions, with tokens either burned or sent to charity based on the outcomes.
- Kraken deleted a promotional LAPTOP post after trader criticism, while Base founder Jesse Pollak said the network chose not to help design or promote the token.
In an X post early Wednesday, Biden acknowledged the criticism surrounding the project and framed LAPTOP as an attempt to take ownership of the laptop controversy that followed him for years. “I understand the cynicism,” he wrote. “Why something that has been so misused by grifters?”
Biden used President Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin as his main comparison, calling the token a “grift” and citing losses suffered by its holders. Nearly 989,000 wallets that bought TRUMP were sitting on a combined $3.81 billion in unrealized losses by July, according to Nansen data previously covered by crypto.news.
The LAPTOP launch has already drawn criticism from crypto traders, while Kraken deleted a promotional post about the token and people connected to its planned distribution have distanced themselves from the project.
LAPTOP token will use airdrops and conditional burns
LAPTOP is scheduled to launch with a total supply of 1 billion tokens on Base, the Ethereum layer 2 network developed by Coinbase. Biden said the project will use several supply allocations covering community distributions, its founders and a series of predetermined events.
The community allocation accounts for 20% of the supply. Some of those tokens are earmarked for wallets that lost money holding TRUMP, alongside other groups included in the project’s planned airdrops.
Biden’s Substack subscribers were previously named among the recipients, while a mailing list associated with video journalist Andrew Callaghan’s Channel 5 was included in the original distribution plan.
Another 30% of the total supply is linked to a set of political, crypto and cultural predictions. The project has established 30 predetermined outcomes, with the tokens assigned to each event handled differently depending on the result.
If a prediction comes true, the tokens linked to it will be burned and permanently removed from circulation. Tokens attached to predictions that do not materialize will instead be sent to charity.
The initial LAPTOP launch plan included events such as a Democratic victory in the 2028 US presidential election, Bitcoin reaching another all-time high and LAPTOP overtaking TRUMP’s market capitalization.
Founders, including Biden, are allocated another 30% of the supply. Those holdings will be subject to lockups and vesting restrictions, with the initial structure placing the founder tokens under a six-month lock before they are gradually released over more than two years.
A further 20% has been set aside for areas including liquidity, exchange listings, legal expenses, administration and charitable purposes.
Biden warned prospective buyers that his involvement should not be treated as a promise of financial returns.
“You should not expect me or anyone else to make this token more valuable for you,” he wrote. “LAPTOP isn’t just about owning something, it’s about saying something.”
Hunter Biden targets TRUMP after billions in holder losses
Biden’s criticism of TRUMP comes after the presidential memecoin lost most of the value reached shortly after its January 2025 debut.
TRUMP launched days before Trump’s second inauguration and climbed to an all-time high of $73.43. By Aug. 13, 2026, the token had fallen to a record low of $1.37, representing a decline of roughly 98% from its peak.
The token briefly rallied 93% in August, climbing from $1.37 to $3.60 in 10 days before dropping sharply after wallets linked to the team transferred 2.62 million TRUMP worth $6.21 million to OKX.
Nansen data cited in July showed that 988,905 of the roughly 1.48 million wallets that had bought TRUMP since launch were holding combined unrealized losses of $3.81 billion.
Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure separately reported a $636 million payout tied to the TRUMP memecoin licensing arrangement. His total crypto-related income for the year exceeded $1 billion, with some calculations placing the figure near $1.4 billion.
Public Citizen later estimated that investors across Trump-linked crypto ventures were at least $4.7 billion underwater. Its calculation included approximately $3.2 billion in losses associated with TRUMP and another $1.45 billion connected to World Liberty Financial and Trump Media investors.
LAPTOP’s decision to allocate tokens to losing TRUMP wallets directly places the rival political memecoin inside its distribution model.
Crypto traders push back before LAPTOP launch
The planned launch faced resistance almost immediately after Biden announced the token earlier this week.
Kraken deleted a promotional social media post about LAPTOP after traders questioned why the crypto exchange was promoting another political memecoin. The exchange had not publicly said that it abandoned any potential listing plans, while the LAPTOP project said exchange listings would be disclosed when trading begins.
Callaghan separately distanced himself and Channel 5 from the project after the program’s mailing list was named as part of the planned token distribution.
The journalist said Channel 5 had nothing to do with the memecoin and did not consider crypto a legitimate investment. Callaghan said Biden had previously asked whether he could use the mailing list when launching a new product, but Channel 5 later said subscriber information was removed before an email was sent.
Base executives faced similar questions because LAPTOP is being deployed on the Coinbase-backed network.
Base founder Jesse Pollak said Biden’s project had approached the team, but the network made a “conscious decision” not to help design or promote the token. The distinction follows earlier debate over Base’s involvement with creator and content tokens, an area where Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong acknowledged in July that the network had “messed up” on content coins.
Pollak subsequently stepped back from leading the Base App to focus on the blockchain after saying demand for its earlier social products had fallen sharply. Coinbase took control of the app while Base redirected attention toward trading, payments and other financial products.
Hunter Biden turns laptop controversy into token branding
The LAPTOP name refers to the computer that became a major political issue after Biden left it at a Delaware repair shop in 2019.
Data said to have originated from the device included emails concerning Biden’s overseas business dealings, along with personal photographs, messages and videos involving his drug use and private life. The material became the subject of political attacks, investigations and online memes over the following years.
Biden has now incorporated the same episode into the identity and marketing of his crypto project, describing the token as a way to take control of something that had repeatedly been used against him.
“They turned laptop into a weapon,” Biden wrote. “I turned it into a token.”
