Hunter Biden Plans Meme Coin Tied to His Controversial Laptop

When the Wall Street Journal broke the story on Monday, the headline was almost too fitting: Hunter Biden, the president’s son, is reportedly rolling out a meme‑coin that riffs on the infamous laptop that once dominated headlines.

According to the report, the new token – dubbed $LAPTOP – will debut on the Base network, a layer‑2 chain built by Coinbase. The timing is curious, too. Hunter posted the cryptic tag "$LAPTOP" on X (formerly Twitter) on September 9, pairing it with a montage of news clips and statements from Trump administration officials who have, for years, seized on the laptop saga.

Let’s rewind a bit. In April 2019, Hunter Biden dropped off a personal computer at a repair shop in Delaware. A few months later, the FBI seized the device, and the contents – a mix of emails, financial documents, and explicit photographs – were thrust into the political spotlight during the 2020 election. The material became a flashpoint for Trump‑aligned media, fueling endless speculation and, frankly, a lot of noise.

Hunter’s lawyers have repeatedly insisted that many of the files were altered or taken out of context. 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.” He added that prosecutors found no proof of corruption beyond the drug‑use narrative.

Beyond defending his reputation, the younger Biden has been unusually vocal about the future of digital money. He’s called for Congress to “truly understand the value and potential utility of cryptocurrency,” and he’s called decentralized digital assets “the inevitable future.” Those statements, whether earnest or strategic, set the stage for his latest move.

And he’s not the first political figure to dip a toe into meme‑coin waters. Back in early 2025, former President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania launched their own pair of meme tokens ahead of his return to the White House. The venture reportedly generated about $1 billion in market activity – a figure that sounds impressive until you realize most small investors walked away with losses.

Investors in meme coins tend to chase hype, novelty, or the promise of quick returns, often without digging into the underlying risk. That dynamic makes $LAPTOP an intriguing, if risky, proposition. Will the token’s value ride the wave of the laptop’s lingering notoriety, or will it sink under the weight of public skepticism?

Coinbase, the parent of the Base network, has not commented on the project at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Hunter’s social‑media activity suggests a blend of genuine advocacy for crypto and a strategic attempt to reframe a past controversy into a commercial opportunity.

Only time will tell whether $LAPTOP becomes a footnote in the ever‑expanding saga of political crypto experiments, or whether it manages to carve out a niche in an already crowded meme‑coin market.