Today in crypto, Hunter Biden unveiled plans for a LAPTOP memecoin that will distribute tokens to holders of President Donald Trump’s memecoin. Citi and DBS completed a weekend cross-border payment using tokenized deposits on SWIFT, while Bitcoin sidechain Liquid paused operations after purported white-hat hackers withdrew about $320 million in Bitcoin.
Hunter Biden to launch LAPTOP memecoin, airdrop tokens to TRUMP holders
Former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, plans to launch a memecoin called LAPTOP on Wednesday, with 20% of its one-billion-token supply earmarked for holders of President Donald Trump’s memecoin and others, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The token takes its name from Biden’s laptop, which became a major political controversy ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Biden and the project’s co-founders will initially control 30% of the supply, with those tokens locked for six months and fully vested over two years. Another 20% is designated for charity and operating expenses.
The project also includes an unusual token-burning mechanism tied to political and market events. Up to 30% of LAPTOP’s supply could be destroyed if certain conditions are met, including a Democrat winning the 2028 presidential election, Bitcoin reaching a record high or LAPTOP’s fully diluted valuation surpassing TRUMP’s.
The launch follows Biden’s recent embrace of blockchain alongside criticism of the Trump family’s crypto ventures. It also puts another political name behind a memecoin as Washington continues debating rules governing the broader digital asset market.
Citi, DBS complete first weekend tokenized cross-border deposit on Swift
Singapore-based financial services group DBS and American financial services giant Citi completed the first weekend tokenized cross-border payment between Singapore and the US on Saturday.
The two companies executed the transaction using tokenized deposits via the Swift Digital Ledger to bypass the constraints of traditional banking hours, DBS announced on Monday.
The deposit was finalized in minutes, which DBS called a “significant improvement” from the industry norm of as long as two business days for traditional cross-border transfers.
The transaction demonstrates how traditional banks are exploring blockchain rails for more efficient cross-border transactions while aiming to keep deposits inside banking channels. Standard Chartered and HSBC were the first to complete a tokenized cross-border transaction on Swift’s blockchain ledger in August.
In July, Swift, the world’s largest financial messaging network, said that its blockchain-based ledger was ready for initial use and that it was preparing to pilot tokenized cross-border payments with 17 major banks, including Citi and DBS, as well as HSBC, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ and Standard Chartered.
Bitcoin sidechain Liquid pauses after purported ‘white hats’ withdraw $320M in BTC
On Sunday, Liquid said that bridge nodes were disabled, preventing new transactions, while exchanges had halted or were preparing to halt L-BTC deposits and withdrawals.
Blockstream, Liquid’s technology provider, started contacting the actors through signed onchain messages. Subsequent messages show the actors told Blockstream to patch the vulnerability and ensure every node was updated before they would return most of the Bitcoin.
They also sent encrypted technical details to Blockstream, according to Galaxy Digital research head Alex Thorn. At the time of writing, the funds had not been returned.
SideSwap said the withdrawal passed through its peg-out service as a customer order using its Peg-out Authorization Key (PAK), but that the key was not compromised. It said the L-BTC used in the transaction originated from a bug in Elements, the open-source software underpinning Liquid, rather than SideSwap’s systems.
Cointelegraph reached out to Liquid Network and Blockstream for comment.
The withdrawn Bitcoin represented roughly 95% of the wallet’s approximately 4,200 BTC balance before the incident. Liquid said other assets issued on the network, including USDT, DePix and real-world assets, were unaffected. The sidechain remained paused while federation members worked to fix the vulnerability.
