Hunter Biden's newly launched LAPTOP memecoin had a wild first hour of trading on Wednesday, briefly reaching a market capitalization of around $110 billion before crashing more than 99%.
The Base-based token began trading shortly after 8 a.m. ET and quickly climbed to more than $300 per token, according to DexScreener data, before giving back virtually all its gains in a matter of minutes.
LAPTOP/USDC price. Source: DexScreener
Some of the biggest potential beneficiaries of the surge didn't even have to buy the token. As part of LAPTOP's previously announced tokenomics, 10% of its 1 billion-token supply was set aside for an initial community airdrop. Biden specifically said that anyone subscribed to his Substack before Sept. 6 would be "eligible to receive free tokens."
Onchain data shows that Substack subscribers were able to claim 4,276 LAPTOP tokens each. At its roughly $300 peak, that would have given each allocation a paper value of nearly $1.3 million.
