Hunter Biden, the younger son of former U.S. President Joe Biden, faced rug pull (investment withdrawal scam) allegations after a meme coin he issued plunged 99% within an hour of listing. Posts say Korean retail investors also bought the coin and took losses.
According to the virtual asset industry on the 10th, the meme coin "$LAPTOP (Laptop)" launched by Hunter was listed at 8 a.m. the previous day (local time) on Base, the Blockchain network of Coinbase, the largest U.S. virtual asset exchange.
LAPTOP began trading at $37.26 and soared to $190.81 in two minutes. But as the early buying quickly cooled, LAPTOP fell about 90% from its peak 30 minutes after launch and dropped to the $2 range within an hour. It is currently trading below $1.
LAPTOP is a meme coin satirizing the "laptop scandal." The laptop scandal refers to controversy that erupted after private materials such as drug-related and nude photos on a laptop Hunter left at a repair shop in April 2019 became public. It was a key attack line for the Donald Trump campaign during the 2020 presidential election.
Part of Hunter's rationale for creating the LAPTOP token is to target U.S. President Donald Trump's official meme coin, $TRUMP (Official Trump). The total supply of LAPTOP tokens is about 1 billion, of which 20% was announced for an airdrop (free distribution) to investors who lost money after investing in TRUMP tokens.
They disclosed that up to 30% of the total supply would be burned when certain conditions are met, such as a Democratic candidate winning the 2028 U.S. presidential election or LAPTOP's market cap surpassing that of the TRUMP token.
But after LAPTOP's plunge left investors with losses, they raised rug pull suspicions. Bubblemaps, an on-chain (on the Blockchain network) analysis platform, analyzed profit and loss data of LAPTOP traders and said about 80% are in the red.
One hundred people recorded losses of more than $10,000, and 700 people lost more than $1,000. About 11,000 traders are sitting on small losses.