The Wall Street Journal reports that the son of former President Joe Biden is preparing to issue a meme coin aimed at Donald Trump. People familiar with the matter said the token will use the ticker $LAPTOP and go live Sept. 9 on Base, the blockchain built by Coinbase.
The name points back to the computer that became a national story after it surfaced in 2020. Public accounts of that device have described messages about foreign business dealings and nude photos of the president’s son using drugs. Those materials later circulated widely and fed years of investigations, conspiracy theories, and online content.
Biden on Monday shared a short video on X that showed news outlets talking about his laptop. The clip appeared to preview the token launch.
Token supply includes locked founder holdings and conditions for burns
Meme coins have no built-in value, and most lose value within days or hours of going public. Such celebrity-backed tokens often see dramatic swings, as when a group called Celebrity Coins reportedly paid Donald Trump 635 million in 2025.
A smaller group has stayed in circulation because well-known people attached their names to them. Tokens connected to President Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and former New York Mayor Eric Adams jumped after launch and then dropped within days.
The $LAPTOP project extends a media push Biden has kept up for weeks. The 56-year-old has sat for podcasts, television interviews, and Substack pieces, sometimes with Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. He has discussed old problems, current complaints, and, at points, the case for crypto.
Biden wrote on X that decentralized digital currencies are the “inevitable future.” He also addressed a fight between the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial project and entrepreneur Justin Sun.
People familiar with the matter said Biden and the other founders will keep 30% of the one billion tokens. The move follows Biden’s recent media appearances, such as when he joins Bill Maher on Real Time, and the host brought up the crack pipe photos.
Those holdings stay locked for six months and finish vesting after two years. Another 20% is set to go out in two batches to the wallets of people who lost money on $TRUMP, Hunter Biden Substack subscribers, and a list kept by video journalist Andrew Callaghan.
$TRUMP came out in January 2025, reached a peak market cap of nearly $15 billion, and later collapsed. It recently traded near $2, or about $600 million in market value.
Callaghan said Monday that he and Channel 5 are not involved. “As we have told our followers numerous times, we do not believe crypto is a legitimate investment,” Callaghan said. “We wish Hunter the best, shout out to the homie.” The group behind the Biden token declined to comment.
The founders said they would destroy as much as 30% of $LAPTOP if 30 listed events finish a certain way on a set timetable. Outcomes that would cut supply include a Democrat winning the 2028 presidential race, bitcoin setting another record high, and $LAPTOP’s fully diluted value topping $TRUMP. If those results do not occur, a matching share of tokens is to go to charity, people familiar with the matter said.
The last 20% is reserved for charity, trading liquidity for exchanges and market makers, and a foundation that will pay accounting, legal, administrative, and compliance bills. Dogecoin, started in 2013 as a joke around a Shiba Inu image, is generally treated as the first meme coin. Biden’s token arrives after appetite for digital assets and for Trump-linked crypto deals has faded.
Trump backed digital assets on the 2024 campaign trail and said the United States should become the world’s crypto capital. Back in office, he put in place regulators seen as friendly to the industry, supported stablecoin legislation, and pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. Bitcoin climbed above $126,000 last October and has slid since.
Recent financial disclosures showed Trump made $1.4 billion last year from his meme coin and other crypto deals. Watchdogs have said the president and his family still earn money from digital assets while helping set federal crypto rules. That dispute has held up the Clarity Act, a bill meant to create a full set of digital-asset rules. Lawmakers have stalled over wording that would bar officials and their immediate families from profiting off those assets.
The White House has previously said that “neither the president nor his family has ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”
Published: Sep 8, 2026 10:30 am