Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP meme coin collapsed roughly 98% on its first trading day. The founder now rejects scam accusations and blames automated bots and thin liquidity instead.
The team published its response on Medium early Thursday, after X suspended the project’s official account. Hunter Biden, the son of former US President Joe Biden, relayed the statement from his personal profile.
Hunter Biden LAPTOP Team Blames Bots for the Crash
The pool opened at $0.05 per token on Wednesday. Demand then overwhelmed the market maker’s starting liquidity, according to the foundation. Predatory sniper bots, which are automated programs that hunt cheap tokens in fresh pools, amplified the swing.
Prices spiked and then cratered within minutes. The token peaked near $199 two minutes into its Base debut on Wednesday, and one wallet turned a $1.18 million profit while another sank $200,000.
The foundation now wants deeper markets. It is sending 4 million tokens, or 0.4% of supply, into Aerodrome pools from midnight UTC on Sept. 10. Separately, two prediction events resolved YES, so 10 million LAPTOP will burn and supply will shrink by 1%.
The foundation named only one of those events. Digital artist Beeple referenced Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP publicly, which settled the first prediction on Tuesday and burns 5 million tokens.
Suspended X Account Adds to the Pressure
The foundation says it is working to restore the account, which X suspended hours after the crash. Insiders bought nothing early, the team insists. Founders hold 30% under a six month lock and a two year vest at Coinbase Custody. Moreover, the team says the project ran no presale and handed no allocations to investors or influencers.
Hunter Biden had set out the full LAPTOP airdrop plan two days before launch. However, that openness did little for holders once the bots arrived.
You should not expect us or anyone else to make this token more valuable for you.
Onchain analytics firm Bubblemaps put numbers on the damage. Roughly 80% of Hunter Biden LAPTOP traders finished underwater. Two wallets lost between $100,000 and $1 million, 100 lost more than $10,000, 700 lost more than $1,000, and around 11,000 took smaller hits.
Those disclosures still sit awkwardly against the tape. Dip buyers kept losing after the plunge, and one trader who bought near $5.97 dropped another 87%. Whether fresh Aerodrome liquidity steadies the token over the coming days is now the open question.