Crypto: Hunter Biden denies profiting from LAPTOP crash

Hunter Biden says he made “not a single dollar” from LAPTOP after the memecoin collapsed by more than 95% at launch. The former US president’s son also says that no one on his team sold their tokens. Meanwhile, Nansen identified a wallet with an unrealized loss of $117,800, while Bubblemaps found an unusual concentration of newly created wallets among the top holders.

Crypto: Hunter Biden denies making any profit

The launch of LAPTOP had already begun in a tense atmosphere. Even before trading started, Kraken had withdrawn a promotion and Base had publicly distanced itself from the memecoin.

After the crash, the accusations quickly shifted. Several users on X raised the possibility of a “rug pull”—a scenario in which insiders profit from liquidity provided by buyers before selling heavily or withdrawing the funds.

Hunter Biden categorically denies this.

According to statements reported by Cointelegraph, the tokens allocated to the team are locked and no one on his side has made a sale. “I, personally, have not made a single dollar,” he said on Wednesday.

The project documents do indeed state that 300 million LAPTOP, or 30% of the total supply of one billion tokens, are reserved for the founders. These assets remain locked for six months before gradually vesting over the following 24 months.

This structure, on its own, does not establish that Biden directly profited from the initial peak.

Bots blamed as 4 million tokens are added

The team offered another explanation for the dramatic price movement: insufficient initial liquidity combined with the arrival of sniper bots.

These automated programs detect when a new market opens and execute purchases within fractions of a second. When a pool contains little liquidity, a few transactions can artificially send the price soaring before the first buyers begin selling.

In its official report published on Medium, the team said LAPTOP was introduced into its first pool at $0.05. Demand and bots allegedly then exceeded the market maker’s capacity, producing the rise followed by the sharp fall observed at launch.

To stabilize the market, the project plans to inject 4 million LAPTOP, or 0.4% of the supply, as liquidity incentives on Aerodrome.

Another ten million tokens, equivalent to 1% of the initial supply, are also due to be burned as part of the project’s prediction system.

The episode nevertheless highlights the extremely fragile mechanics of small-cap assets. Bref Crypto observed a different model with Cyberleek, which allegedly extracted around $250,000 from its GTA VI memecoin by monetizing volume and fees rather than necessarily carrying out a sudden token sale.

60% of major wallets were new

On-chain data nonetheless make it impossible to close the case immediately.

Nansen analyzed several wallets that traded LAPTOP. One showed an unrealized loss of $117,800, while another was down around $12,300. Two other accounts remained in profit, with unrealized gains of $13,100 and $1,800, respectively. None of these four wallets had sold at the time of the snapshot.

Over 24 hours, Nansen recorded notably 46,675 buy transactions against 16,038 sells, with 20,085 unique buyers and just 8,714 sellers.

Bubblemaps adds a more intriguing figure: 60% of the wallets among LAPTOP’s top holders had no prior activity. The company defines “fresh wallets” as addresses funded less than ten days earlier and says that most were funded on the day of the launch.

This point deserves to remain in its proper context. A recent wallet is not proof of insider trading. It may belong to any trader who created a new address specifically to participate in the launch.

It nevertheless adds another layer of on-chain scrutiny to an already disputed operation.

LAPTOP thus offers another illustration of the difference between suspicion and proof in crypto. A 95% drop, recent wallets and heavily losing traders are not enough to demonstrate a rug pull. Bref Crypto’s glossary reserves the term for situations in which the team actually withdraws liquidity or sells its positions heavily.

For now, the established facts are simpler: Hunter Biden says he sold nothing, and the announced founder allocations are locked. Blockchain data will now have to determine whether other addresses linked to the project benefited from the initial surge.

The crash is visible. Hunter Biden’s personal enrichment, however, has not been demonstrated.