Hunter Biden is turning the laptop that upended his father's presidency into a cryptocurrency that takes aim at President Donald Trump.
According to a Monday article by the Wall Street Journal, the son of former President Joe Biden will launch a meme coin called $LAPTOP on September 9 and trade it on Base, a blockchain built by the crypto exchange Coinbase. The token's name nods to the personal computer whose contents, including foreign business records, drug use and explicit photos, fueled years of investigations and conspiracy theories after surfacing in 2020.
The rollout takes direct aim at the Trump family. According to people familiar with Biden's plans who spoke to The Journal, roughly 20 percent of the one billion tokens will be sent to crypto wallets belonging to people who lost money on $TRUMP, the president's own meme coin, along with subscribers to Hunter Biden's Substack and a mailing list run by his friend, video journalist Andrew Callaghan. $TRUMP briefly approached a $15 billion market value after its January 2025 debut before collapsing.
Biden and other founders of the $LAPTOP coin will hold 30 percent of the supply, locked for six months and fully vesting over two years, The Journal reported. In an unusual twist, the founders agreed to destroy up to 30 percent of the tokens if a series of predetermined events breaks their way, including a Democrat winning the 2028 presidential election, bitcoin hitting a new all-time high, or $LAPTOP's valuation topping $TRUMP's. Tokens tied to events that don't pan out would be donated to charity, according to The Journal.
The launch caps a weeks-long media blitz for Biden, who has surfaced across podcasts, news shows and Substack essays while embracing digital currency, The Journal noted. Biden has called decentralized currencies the "inevitable future."
Trump, meanwhile, campaigned on making the U.S. a global crypto hub and, once in office, installed friendly regulators and backed stablecoin legislation, The Journal noted. His financial disclosures showed roughly $1.4 billion earned from crypto and meme-coin ventures last year, which has drawn conflict-of-interest warnings from watchdogs and stalled a broader crypto regulation bill.
The White House has said neither Trump nor his family has "ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest," The Journal noted.