The controversial memecoin LAPTOP, linked to Hunter Biden, hit the cryptocurrency market on Wednesday morning (9) and immediately did what most "celebrity memecoins" have done before it: it surged, then plunged.
The token — named after the Delaware laptop saga that dogged Biden during the 2020 election and in the years since — launched on Base (Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network) that morning.
Blockchain intelligence firm Arkham reported that LAPTOP peaked at US$190.81 just two minutes later, a level that implied a fully diluted valuation near US$144 billion, against liquidity of only US$48,000.
This gap between valuation and real tradeable liquidity set the stage for the collapse. Within 30 minutes, LAPTOP had lost about 90% of its value, and by the time it completed an hour of trading it stood near US$4.77.
By the afternoon, the token had stabilised, trading around US$1.97 — a drop of nearly 99% from the day's high — though still registering double-digit gains over short intervals, as low trading volume made the price swing. That was enough for a market capitalisation of US$780 million and a fully diluted valuation of US$2.2 billion, placing it among the top 100 crypto assets by market cap.
On-chain tracking tools captured both sides of the trade in real time. Those who sold as fast as possible were the ones who profited from the launch. One wallet withdrew US$249,800 from Binance before launch, bought 9,124 units of LAPTOP and, minutes later, sold most of the position for about US$1.18 million.
Another trader was not so fortunate. That trader spent about US$200,000 to buy 919 LAPTOP tokens at a price near US$218 each — a position that, an hour later, was worth less than US$3,000, according to the same tracking. The difference between the two outcomes came down almost entirely to timing measured in seconds, not minutes.
Pessimism
LAPTOP's launch-day trajectory mirrors almost exactly what happened with the two most prominent political memecoins before it. The TRUMP token, linked to President Donald Trump, peaked near US$75 shortly after its January 2025 launch and now trades around US$2.24 — a drop of roughly 97% from its high.
Nearly a million holders collectively lost about US$3.81 billion on the coin.
Melania Trump's coin followed a similar path, plunging more than 99% from its own peak. Biden based LAPTOP's tokenomics directly on that track record, setting aside part of the token's airdrop for wallets that lost money holding TRUMP.
Decrypt had flagged this exact outcome as the most likely scenario even before LAPTOP launched, noting that tokens tied to politicians and celebrities invariably attract a fast first wave of buyers — regardless of what the internet thinks of the person behind them — while the second wave, the one that decides whether the token becomes a headline or a punchline, tends to end badly more often than not.
Investor Mark Cuban's line that every memecoin is a "potential rug pull" seems to be the working assumption among crypto traders at launches like this one.
Too early for a verdict
The first hours of trading followed the pump-and-dump pattern: concentrated supply, thin liquidity, a rapid spike driven by snipers and bots, and a sharp drop as soon as early buyers took profits. That reading fits everything visible on the chart and in the on-chain data so far, but it is not unexpected and appears to be part of many launch events.
For reference, SpaceX (the world's largest IPO) has traded below its listing price for most of its time on the market, meaning most of its retail investors have been in the red since the IPO, and no investor who bought SPCX during its first week of trading is currently in profit.
With that in mind, a token that has already fallen nearly 99% from its peak has little room left to fall further in percentage terms, and LAPTOP's tokenomics still have mechanisms — a six-month lock-up for founders' tokens, a 30-event burn schedule and staggered airdrop rounds — that play out over months, not hours.
Whether Wednesday's opening peak was the whole story or just the first chapter depends on how the token behaves once launch-day buyers stop piling in, and on how the actual holding behaviour of airdrop recipients who lost money on TRUMP shows up in the data.
* Translated and edited with permission from Decrypt.
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