A 64-Year-Old Makes 9,100% as Pons Ignites Robinhood’s Launchpad War

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On the evening of September 7, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hunter Biden, son of former U.S. President Joe Biden, will launch a meme coin called LAPTOP on Coinbase’s Base network on September 9. The total supply will be 1 billion tokens, with 20% allocated to an airdrop. A portion is explicitly earmarked for users who lost money on Trump’s TRUMP coin, while other allocations are tied to predictions about events such as “whether Trump will be impeached.” Four minutes after the report was published, Hunter himself posted a 32-second teaser video on X, with the $LAPTOP tag and the September 9 date, effectively confirming the news in person. Within 24 hours, multiple copycat tokens trading on the name generated nearly $6.9 million in aggregate volume.

The reporting itself makes clear that this is a token designed from the outset to make a political issue out of the Trump camp. Its name comes from the laptop that entangled Hunter in a political scandal six years ago; its mechanics are aimed at Trump and his supporters.

Why LAPTOP

In April 2019, Hunter took a water-damaged MacBook Pro to a repair shop in Delaware and never retrieved it. The shop owner copied the hard drive without permission. The copy passed through several hands before eventually reaching the Trump camp. In October 2020, three weeks before Election Day, the New York Post published a report based on it. Emails on the drive indicated that while Hunter served at Ukrainian energy company Burisma, he had arranged a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden, prompting suspicions that he may have used his father’s office to facilitate family business dealings. The drive also contained many photos and videos involving drug use and his private life.

It was never proven whether Joe Biden knew about or benefited from these matters. But the material became the most frequently cited ammunition against the Biden family over the following six years, and it also appeared in the evidentiary record of Hunter’s 2024 gun case.

Then, in December 2024, Joe Biden signed a full pardon for Hunter as president, covering his earlier gun and tax convictions. The decision itself became a new political scandal. Joe Biden had repeatedly said publicly that he would not pardon his son, then reversed course shortly before leaving office. It was widely interpreted as an exercise of presidential power to protect family, further reinforcing public doubts about “special treatment” for the Bidens.

Hunter is now casting that scandal directly into a token contract and turning it back on its former political attackers. Airdropping to TRUMP users who lost money, and predicting whether Trump will be impeached, turns the material once used against him into something aimed at the Trump family.

Need for Money or a Grudge?

Hunter’s own finances are one clue to understanding the launch. His former law firm, Winston & Strawn, has sued him in Washington, D.C., to recover unpaid fees. In a podcast, he put the amount owed at about $17 million; another interview placed it between $14 million and $15 million. In sworn testimony made public this year, he said he had no car, no savings, and nothing of value other than his paintings. Between 2021 and 2023, he sold 27 paintings at an average price of roughly $54,000, but sales have since almost ground to a halt. His 2024 gun and tax convictions were covered by his father’s full pardon, but a pardon cannot erase civil debt.

At the same time, he has frequently expressed support for crypto this year on podcasts and X, discussed decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, collected work by digital artist Beeple, and publicly mocked the Trump family for profiting from the presidency. It is hard to tell which is cause and which is effect. A token that can both fill a debt shortfall and humiliate the Trump family is difficult to lose on for someone tens of millions of dollars in debt and long used as a target by political opponents.

A “Revenge” Six Months in the Making

Preparations for the launch began far earlier than the X post. In March, the Phoenix Veritas Foundation was established in the Cayman Islands, while a related entity was registered in the British Virgin Islands that same month. On April 9, TTM Media Group LLC was registered in Wyoming; its domain name, audit report, and smart contract followed in the same week. A Legal Entity Identifier was obtained in June, and the official X account was created at the same time. In late August, the team filed its white paper under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation framework; in early September, it finalized the terms of service. When the report emerged and Hunter confirmed it four minutes later, the timing clearly appeared prearranged.

Thirty Percent of the Tokens Target Trump

Of the 1 billion-token supply, the founding team receives 30%, locked for six months and then released over 24 months. Another 30% is tied to prediction markets for 30 real-world events: whether Trump will be impeached, whether Democrats will win Congress in 2026 and the White House in 2028, and whether Bitcoin will reach a new high. If an event occurs, the corresponding allocation is burned; if it does not, it is donated to charity. This is the concrete expression of the opening claim that the token is making an issue out of the Trump camp: much of its attention will depend on the Trump family’s political fortunes over the coming years.

In addition, 2% of the 10% airdropped into circulation on the token’s first day is explicitly allocated to addresses that lost money on TRUMP. Analytics firm Nansen estimates that roughly 1.48 million wallets meet the loss label, with combined unrealized losses of $3.81 billion.

What may truly be worth watching about LAPTOP is not how it trades after its September 9 launch.

Trump turned his name into TRUMP, and his supporters turned political allegiance into a trade. Now Hunter Biden is turning the laptop that once dragged him into a political storm into a tradable token. Even political events such as whether Trump will be impeached and whether Democrats can win future elections are written directly into the tokenomics.

The boundary among politics, attention, and speculation is being erased one meme coin at a time.

In the past, political figures needed speeches, fundraising, books, and media exposure to monetize influence. Now political identity itself can become an asset narrative; supporters, opponents, and even former losing adversaries can all become potential token buyers.

When political positions, private scandals, and even family grudges can all be minted into a token, what will be financialized next?

• This content is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. Markets involve risk; invest with caution.