Clarification from the developer’s side has finally emerged. Hunter Biden denied pocketing “a single dollar” from the LAPTOP memecoin bearing his name, shortly after the token’s price collapsed by more than 95% in its first hour of trading.
Through an official statement on X, Biden attempted to quell investor panic by pointing to the token’s ownership structure. “Team allocation is locked,” he wrote in response to a barrage of criticism. “No one on our end has sold, and no one can sell.”
Instead of acknowledging any internal selling, he blamed two external factors for the price crash. First, insufficient initial liquidity to absorb large transactions. Second, the presence of “snipers” - automated trading bots designed to execute token purchases at lightning speed the moment public trading opens, only to dump them immediately as retail buyers begin stepping in.
Old Story, New Problems
Crypto market data captured the aftermath of the crash. At the time of writing, LAPTOP was trading stuck at the $0.8562 level, according to CoinGecko data. The collapse of the project’s value sparked immediate backlash from the crypto community. Several X users openly accused the LAPTOP development team of orchestrating a “rug pull” - the practice of luring retail buyers and then pulling all liquidity from the market.
The public accusations carry weight. A previous report on September 9 noted that behind LAPTOP’s 95.7% first-hour drop, the founding group was shown to hold 30% of the total initial supply. Such a large token allocation structure is often an early red flag for on-chain analysts before investing.
The memecoin, launched on the Base network, borrows its name from the MacBook incident reportedly left behind by Hunter Biden at a hardware repair shop in 2019. That laptop incident was later used as campaign material by Donald Trump’s political opponents ahead of the 2020 United States presidential election.
Isolated Noise
Despite the token launch drama and Biden’s defense dominating social media feeds, the broader crypto market barely reacted. The impact of the LAPTOP incident on major assets proved to be practically zero. Leading altcoins and major on-chain tokens remained stable and traded normally in the hours following the controversial coin’s launch.
The collapse of LAPTOP shows that social media defenses rarely change market reality for retail traders. The claim that the team did not sell may hold true on the smart contract level, but for buyers who lost 95% of their capital within minutes due to an initial structure vulnerable to bot attacks, that explanation does nothing to recover the losses already incurred.
Reported via Cointelegraph.
Also read: How to Read Candlestick Charts for Beginners
Previously: Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP Plunges 95.7% in First Hour - Founders Held 30% Supply
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only, not financial advice. Cryptocurrency assets are highly volatile and carry significant risk. Always do your own research (DYOR) and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
