Hunter Biden is about to test whether his criticism of political profiteering through crypto applies to his own business ventures.
According to The Wall Street Journal, former President Joe Biden’s son plans to launch a memecoin called LAPTOP on Sept. 9, turning one of the most politically charged episodes of his father’s 2020 election campaign into a speculative crypto asset. The token will debut on Coinbase’s Base network with a supply of 1 billion units.
Following the report, Hunter Biden promoted the LAPTOP ticker on X with a video compilation revisiting the laptop controversy.
The project puts Biden’s political notoriety at the center of the trade. Its name references the laptop he left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019, whose contents became a major controversy ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
Founders, including Biden, have been allocated 30% of LAPTOP’s supply, with those tokens locked for six months before vesting over the following two years.
Another 20% is reserved for two rounds of airdrops, including distributions to Biden’s Substack subscribers and wallets that lost money holding President Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin. Up to another 30% is linked to a series of political, cultural, and crypto outcomes that could result in tokens being permanently removed from circulation.
Those conditions include Democrats winning the 2028 presidential election, Bitcoin reaching another record high, and LAPTOP surpassing TRUMP’s valuation. If specified prediction-market outcomes are met, the corresponding tokens are slated to be burned; otherwise they can be directed to charity.
The structure makes LAPTOP an unusually direct attempt to financialize Biden’s political identity just months after he accused the Trump family of exploiting crypto for personal gain.
Biden’s criticism of Trump now faces its own test
Biden has never presented himself as an opponent of digital assets. His criticism has instead focused on the intersection of crypto, political power and private enrichment under Trump.
In August, Biden attacked World Liberty Financial, the crypto company co-founded by Trump and his sons, calling it “corruption at a scale we’ve never seen.” After laying out allegations against the company, he concluded that the “crypto industry deserves better.”
Months earlier, Biden said the Trump family had “corrupted it, almost completely,” while arguing that Democrats should become more receptive to blockchain technology.
That distinction is significant because Biden has simultaneously emerged as an enthusiastic supporter of crypto.
During a May interview with conservative commentator Candace Owens, he said there was “incredible promise in cryptocurrency,” described himself as “kind of like a crypto person,” and said he believed in the ideas underpinning Bitcoin.
He even foreshadowed LAPTOP, saying he believed in memecoins and wanted to create something around a community in the future.
LAPTOP now provides a real-world test of where Biden draws the line.
Like TRUMP, the project draws much of its potential value from the public profile of the person associated with it. Political allegiance and controversy become part of the token’s appeal, while insiders receive a substantial portion of the supply.
The project goes further by weaving partisan outcomes directly into its token economics. A Democratic presidential victory can reduce LAPTOP’s supply, while overtaking Trump’s token represents another potential burn event. The planned airdrop to investors underwater on TRUMP also explicitly seeks to pull Trump memecoin traders into Biden’s rival political asset.
That creates an uncomfortable parallel with the crypto commercialization Biden has spent months attacking.
One distinction separates Biden from Trump
However, a significant difference separates the two situations: Hunter Biden holds no government position.
Trump is president while maintaining a financial interest in businesses operating in an industry whose regulatory environment his administration can shape. His administration appoints financial regulators, influences crypto legislation, and has pursued policies broadly favorable to digital assets.
Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures in 2025, including almost $800 million received by his companies from World Liberty Financial and about $635 million tied to his memecoin.
The White House has rejected allegations that those businesses create improper conflicts, while Trump has said he does not involve himself in managing his finances.
Biden has no comparable ability to influence federal crypto policy, giving him a basis to argue that LAPTOP does not create the kind of conflict he sees in Trump’s businesses.
Yet the launch narrows another distinction.
Biden’s criticism has repeatedly centered on politicians and their families using prominence generated through public life to accumulate private wealth. His own history was itself the subject of years of Republican investigations over whether business relationships benefited from his father’s political position.
With LAPTOP, Biden is openly turning that same political identity into an investable asset.
The founding team’s 30% allocation means its members could benefit directly if attention surrounding Biden translates into demand for the token once their holdings begin unlocking. The project’s political burn mechanics, TRUMP-related airdrop, and name leave little separation between the asset and the controversies that made Biden famous.
LAPTOP therefore creates a harder question for Biden than whether he believes in crypto. He has already made clear that he does.
The question is how far someone can monetize a famous political name through crypto before reaching the territory Biden himself has spent months condemning.
