Joe Biden’s son to launch memecoin, will send to TRUMP holders: WSJ

Hunter Biden, son of former US President Joe Biden, announced that he plans to launch a memecoin based on the reports of his infamous laptop, which has been subject to intense media scrutiny.

In a Monday announcement on X, Hunter Biden posted the memecoin’s ticker symbol, $LAPTOP, signaling a Wednesday launch. The Wall Street Journal reported that Biden would send 20% of the one-billion token supply to substack subscribers, members of a mailing list and investors in President Donald Trump’s memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP), whose value has dropped by about 97% since reaching an all-time high price in January 2025.

Source: Hunter Biden

The basis for the memecoin’s namesake is Biden’s computer, whose existence and contents were subject to scrutiny before the 2020 election, in which his father was running against Trump. The laptop continues to be invoked by many right-wing media figures and was the subject of two lawsuits filed by Biden over privacy laws. 

Since his father left office in January 2025, Biden has stepped up his rhetoric on crypto and blockchain, specifically criticizing the Trump family’s entanglements with the industry through its World Liberty Financial business. 

In August, he called World Liberty “corruption at a scale we’ve never seen,” comparing its business practices with those of defunct crypto exchange FTX and pointing to its ties to foreign governments like the UAE. Biden also said in June that “decentralized digital currency and the blockchain are the inevitable future.”

Related: Real Trump Coins denies launching GOLD token, blames ‘bad actors’

The LAPTOP founders, holding 30% of the token supply, will reportedly burn up to 30% of the memecoins depending on the outcome of events, including a Democrat winning the presidency in 2028, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) reaching an all-time high and LAPTOP’s fully diluted value exceeding TRUMP’s.

CLARITY Act vote set for later this month

The LAPTOP memecoin, if launched as planned, could shine more of a spotlight on Trump’s crypto ventures at a time when lawmakers in Congress are considering a comprehensive market structure bill to regulate the digital asset industry. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, also known as the CLARITY Act, is scheduled for a cloture vote in the Senate on Sept. 15.

Cointelegraph reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Magazine: Who is legally liable when an AI agent goes rogue?