Hunter Biden's Laptop crypto follows other political meme coins as it craters 98% in a day

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.