Hunter Biden plans to release a memecoin titled LAPTOP on Wednesday, though the cryptocurrency speculators it targets are advising him to drop the idea.
The asset launches on Base, the blockchain developed by Coinbase, featuring a total supply of one billion tokens. Creators, including Biden, secure 30% of the supply, which remains locked for six months before vesting gradually over more than two years. Another 20% is distributed through two separate airdrops, where the primary group eligible consists of crypto wallets holding losses from TRUMP, the memecoin introduced by Donald Trump shortly prior to his 2025 inauguration.
Tokens are also designated for Biden’s Substack subscribers and a mailing list managed by video journalist Andrew Callaghan. The Wall Street Journal initially broke the news regarding the strategy, and Biden verified the initiative on X on Monday alongside the ticker symbol and a video compilation of news anchors discussing the laptop he left at a repair shop located in Delaware back in 2019.
Consequently, Base has spent the past day establishing a clear separation between permitting the launch of LAPTOP and actively endorsing it.
Jordan Fish, widely recognized as Cobie and serving as the leader of Coinbase’s Base application division, pushed back after community members began holding Base accountable for the upcoming release. Any individual can deploy a token on Base without requiring authorization from Coinbase, he explained, noting that no formal collaboration exists between Coinbase or Base and the LAPTOP project.
Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base, noted that the LAPTOP crew had made contact ahead of the rollout. Base made an intentional choice to refrain from assisting with the token’s conception or marketing, he stated, because political matters are intricate and guiding the outcome did not align with the role of Base.
“Base is permissionless and we welcome anyone to build on it,” he stated on X.
What’s the meme about
Files reportedly retrieved from the hardware included electronic mail detailing overseas commercial activities alongside highly personal photographs, texts, and video files concerning drug abuse and his private affairs, much of which controversially leaked to the public around the period of the 2020 election.
The computer generated thousands of satirical internet jokes during that era. Years later, Biden is attempting to monetize that notoriety by converting the joke into a cryptocurrency asset. Nonetheless, the community reaction has been unusually direct.
“Dude, f*ck you. Still time to walk this back,” pseudonymous decentralized finance developer scupytrooples replied to Biden’s announcement regarding the upcoming release. Prominent trader DonAlt labeled it a complete embarrassment, writing that Biden had “finally been handed a platform” and used it to issue a memecoin. Anonymous crypto investor Byzantine General instructed him “never to come back.”
The negative response proved substantial enough to cause corporate entities to scale back their social media promotional activities. Digital asset exchange Kraken removed a promotional post concerning the token after traders flooded the comments section to question why a leading cryptocurrency platform was marketing yet another politically charged memecoin.
Kraken has not stated whether it abandoned plans to list LAPTOP, and the project’s official portal indicates that exchange availability will be disclosed once trading commences.
Meanwhile, Callaghan stated that neither he nor his Channel 5 production had any association with the token, despite a Channel 5 mailing list being featured among the cohorts qualified for the scheduled LAPTOP airdrop. Channel 5 does not view cryptocurrency as a viable investment vehicle, Callaghan informed The Wall Street Journal.
However, not all participants are stepping away. Token creation protocol Pump.fun continued promoting LAPTOP on Tuesday, and imitation tokens utilizing identical naming conventions were actively traded on the platform during Asian morning hours. This indicates that market enthusiasm for speculating on viral attention remains present.
CoinDesk has contacted Coinbase seeking additional commentary regarding the relationship between Base and the token, alongside inquiries to Kraken concerning its deleted marketing material.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/09/08/crypto-traders-turn-on-hunter-biden-s-laptop-memecoin-before-it-even-launches.
