Hunter Biden's Crypto Follows Other Political Meme Coins As It Craters 98% In A Day

• Hunter Biden's meme coin has plunged in value since it began trading on Tuesday.
• The pattern is similar to the path of tokens launched by other political figures.
• Biden responded to allegations of a rug pull, stating that no traders had any advantage.

Trading of Hunter Biden's meme coin isn't off to a great start.

The son of former President Joe Biden announced on Monday that he would be launching a memecoin inspired by the laptop saga that fueled conspiracy theories during his father's presidency.

In a roller coaster ride that's familiar to anyone who has watched the meme coin space, $LAPTOP briefly surged from $37 when trading began on Tuesday, to a peak of nearly $225. By midday, it had fallen to about $2, and on Thursday the crypto was trading at about $0.60, down 98% since its debut.

Right on cue, the accusations of a "rug pull"—in which a crypto creator sells at the peak and tanks the price, leaving investors holding the bag—were piling up across social media. Hunter Biden himself sought to address them in a post on X.

"The reality is that available liquidity could not sustain the strong level of interest at launch," he said. "Technical issues coupled with predatory 'snipers', who seek to beat liquidity providers to market, caused a spike in price, which has since stabilized to healthy levels."

$LAPTOP is the latest in a line of meme coins launched by politicos to soar and quickly plummet. In January, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams drew ire from the crypto community with NYCToken.

The meme coin plunged 80% within a few minutes, sparking accusations of a rug pull.

Donald Trump's $TRUMP coin has also been extremely volatile. While the president enjoyed a significant windfall from his crypto investments over the past year, the coin he launched just before returning to the White House has fallen 77% in 12 months.

Finance pros have blamed meme coins for harming sentiment in the wider crypto market. David Weisberger, a Wall Street veteran and co-founder of trading platform CoinRoutes, told Business Insider that he doesn't regard the $LAPTOP launch as any different than other recent high-profile meme coin launches that culminated in an abrupt rout.

"That was maybe the most predictable rug pull in in human history," he said. "I think the Trump one was pretty obvious. This one was even more obvious."

Biden has emphasized transparency since the $LAPTOP launch. In a post on Medium, he wrote that no presale tokens were issued to any investors or influencers, also noting that prior to the launch, his team announced the contract address and complete token allocation details, as well as a full security audit.

"Almost no memecoin does this, and almost none does it before launch," he wrote. "There was no stealth deployment, no hidden supply, and no surprise to benefit insiders."

Hunter Biden could not be reached for comment.