Hunter Biden’s $LAPTOP coin causes ‘bloodbath’ for investors. How to protect yourself

Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below.

Over 600,000 new cryptocurrencies were created in just the first days of 2026, according to Binance (1), a digital asset marketplace and crypto exchange. A surprising number of them have come from people in the political realm, including President Trump's $TRUMP coin (2) and the first lady's $MELANIA coin, which was created as part of the Melania Meme (3) project.

Now, a big name from the left side of the aisle has decided to get in on the action. On Sept. 9, Hunter Biden launched his own meme coin (4), $LAPTOP, named for some of the most controversial coverage of the younger Biden during Joe Biden's presidential run.

Jeff Bezos backs a platform that lets anyone invest in rental homes for as little as $100 — 6 ways to build wealth like a landlord without actually being one

A record 45% of central banks plan to grow gold reserves — and many investors are following suit. Get your free gold IRA guide from Priority Gold

A single line on your car insurance policy could be inflating your premium by up to 30% — here's what to change

The laptop story took off in 2019, when the owner of a repair shop claimed Hunter Biden had abandoned a damaged laptop. The shop owner said the laptop had compromising personal photos and emails describing foreign business deals.

It sparked a firestorm when news media were accused of suppressing details in the lead-up to the election (5).

Fast-forward, and Hunter Biden is using the famous laptop story as a springboard to launch his own crypto coin, having announced its debut early in the week of Sept. 7, with plans to issue a billion tokens.

The tokens were slated to be distributed to the coin's founders, who would receive 30%, as well as to Biden's Substack subscribers and crypto wallet owners who suffered losses on $TRUMP. Subscribers to an Andrew Callaghan-associated mailing list were also eligible.

$LAPTOP tokens issued to the founders were set to be unsellable for six months and to vest over two full years. The plan was to burn some tokens based on criteria like Democrats winning elections, $LAPTOP's price overtaking $TRUMP's price, or Bitcoin reaching an all-time high (6).

Things didn't go as planned. The token's value plummeted within minutes, falling from a peak of $190 per token to less than $2. Unsurprisingly, investors lost big, with blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps reporting that 80% of investors who had purchased $LAPTOP lost money (7).