Hunter Biden’s $LAPTOP memecoin suffered a dramatic collapse, losing approximately 95% of its peak value within hours of launching on Coinbase’s Base blockchain.
The token initially surged from roughly $37 per coin to more than $222 before crashing to around $1.80, wiping out the gains of countless buyers who entered near the top.
According to data from the Pump.fun platform, $LAPTOP generated approximately $39 million in trading volume since launch, though how much reflected genuine demand remains unclear.
CoinDesk reported that within two minutes of trading, $LAPTOP printed a price implying a fully diluted valuation of nearly $144 billion, while the liquidity pool backing those trades held just $48,000.
The Block reported the token briefly hit a $110 billion market cap within minutes of launch before collapsing sharply in the hour that followed.
An hour after launch, CoinDesk placed the circulating market cap at roughly $1.6 billion on 350 million tokens, with a fully diluted figure near $4.8 billion, representing a drop of about 98% from the intraday peak.
Basescan data showed that the five largest wallets among nearly 29,000 holders controlled 84% of the tokens in circulation, a concentration that raised immediate concerns about the project’s structure.
Hunter Biden confirmed plans to issue the token on social network X after the Wall Street Journal published a report about the project, saying the symbol used against him should become one of resilience, redemption, and recovery.
Biden also accused the Trump family of a “breach of trust” during the launch, drawing a pointed contrast with the president’s own memecoin, $TRUMP, which similarly collapsed after its debut.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “20% of the supply will be sent, in two batches, to crypto wallets belonging to people who lost money on $TRUMP, the president’s meme coin, subscribers to Hunter Biden’s Substack and a mailing list curated by his friend Andrew Callaghan, a video journalist.”
Video journalist Andrew Callaghan stated on X that he was not involved in the crypto project and had only shared his contact list with Biden to help expand his audience.
Callaghan’s representative, Mitchell Jackson, confirmed that Callaghan did not know about the initiative’s connection to cryptocurrency when he provided the mailing list.
Biden and other owners held 30% of the coins issued, while most of the total one billion $LAPTOP tokens remained locked at the time of launch, according to CoinMarketCap data.
CoinMarketCap estimated the market value of tokens available for trading at just under $500 million, underscoring the gulf between perceived and actual liquidity in the project.
CNN senior business reporter Matt Egan cautioned viewers against investing, citing a Wall Street executive who called meme coins “amusing” but ultimately a “really stupid” investment for ordinary buyers.
