Key Highlights
- Hunter Biden said Groom Lake reviewed every trade from the $LAPTOP launch and identified unusually thin initial liquidity.
- He said about $5,200 of $500,000 available liquidity was placed into the initial pool, which held fewer than 30,000 $LAPTOP tokens.
- $LAPTOP rose from about $0.05 to roughly $317 in less than two minutes before falling about 98% within the first hour.
Hunter Biden has published his account of the $LAPTOP memecoin launch, saying a forensic review found that limited liquidity at launch contributed to the token’s rapid price increase and subsequent collapse.
In an X post on October 7, Biden said he hired Groom Lake, which he described as an independent forensics firm, to review every trade from the launch.
Earlier $LAPTOP reports documented sharp launch crash
The latest accounting follows Crypto Times reports on the September 9 launch of $LAPTOP.
The token initially rose to about $316 before falling to around $6 within minutes. A separate report documented one trader’s roughly $200,000 position falling to about $3,000 within an hour, while another wallet reportedly made more than $1 million during the early trading period.
On September 10, Biden denied profiting from the launch after questions emerged over token transfers before trading began. At the time, 42.5 million $LAPTOP tokens had been transferred before launch, including 15.5 million tokens sent to GSR and another 14.5 million sent to an unlabeled wallet.
Biden says initial liquidity was unusually low
According to Biden, Market Maker 1 had $500,000 available for the launch but put only about $5,200 into the initial pool.
He said the pool opened with fewer than 30,000 $LAPTOP tokens, representing about 0.003% of the total supply.
Biden said the thin liquidity meant that a purchase of roughly $6 could move the token price by as much as a $7,400 sale at the same point in the launch.
Biden said Groom Lake compared the launch with 668 other token launches and found none with a similar imbalance. He said $LAPTOP was more than 1,000 times easier to push upward than to sell at the same price level.
The underlying analysis was not included in the post.
$LAPTOP rose from cents to $317
Biden said $LAPTOP traded at around $0.05 at launch before reaching approximately $317 in less than two minutes.
Biden said the move represented an increase of more than 600,000%.
The token then fell by about 98% within the first hour.
Biden also said headlines describing the token as having reached a $300 billion market capitalization did not represent an amount that could actually have been withdrawn from the market because there was not enough liquidity to support sales at those prices.
Market maker pulled liquidity during the sell-off
Biden said the liquidity imbalance became more severe during the sell-off.
According to his account, 84 seconds after the token reached its peak, Market Maker 1 withdrew funds from the pool while the price was falling.
Biden said the amount of cash available to pay sellers near the prevailing price fell from about $16,157 to zero.
As a result, he said traders attempting to exit their positions had to push the price down substantially to find available liquidity.
Biden said the market maker was hired to provide liquidity on both sides of the market and that he considered the outcome his responsibility.
Biden says market-maker-linked DEX activity generated millions
Biden said the largest gains identified in the review came from market-making activity rather than the founder allocation.
According to his account, Market Maker 1’s DEX positions ended approximately $686,000 ahead.
He said DEX trading associated with Market Maker 2 generated more than $2.1 million in net gains.
Biden said he had hired two market makers and provided capital so they could maintain liquidity on both sides of the market.
Biden argued that the market maker he holds responsible for the liquidity problems should purchase the affected tokens and burn them, although he did not say that such a transaction had occurred.
Founder wallet still holds LAPTOP tokens on BaseScan
Biden said the team had not cashed out from the founder allocation and that the founder tokens remain in a single address.
He provided the address 0xD81BF90A51B7FE69722c62168416Fa2654fa818.
A BaseScan screenshot shared with the accounting identifies the address as a contract. The page shows an ETH balance of 0.00838147 ETH, valued at about $21.49 at the price displayed on the page.
The screenshot also shows 56 token holdings with a combined displayed value of about $1.
BaseScan lists six transactions in total for the address. The visible transaction history includes incoming transfers from addresses including ramo4586.base.eth and túúprăs.eth, along with a transaction involving another contract address.
The page also identifies a contract creator address beginning 0x46565eeD…f736dA28e and an implementation address beginning 0x29fcB43b…91900C762.
The screenshot shows a small ETH balance and limited displayed token value at the time it was captured. It does not, by itself, establish the complete transaction history or prove ownership of the address.
Biden said the founder allocation is locked for six months and will then vest over two years.
Most unclaimed airdrop tokens to be burned
Biden also said the team plans to burn most of the unclaimed tokens from the first $LAPTOP airdrop.
The airdrop represented 10% of the token supply, according to his post.
He said only a small portion of those tokens had been claimed through the project’s Substack distribution and that the team would burn most of the remaining unclaimed allocation next week.
Biden did not provide a final amount for the planned burn.
Biden says he will continue with the project
Biden said the launch problems had not changed his intention to continue with $LAPTOP.
He said he took responsibility for the launch outcome and would not walk away from the project.
Biden also said the project was partly intended as a response to President Donald Trump’s $TRUMP memecoin, which he had previously criticized.
What the accounting does not establish
Biden’s post provides an account of the launch based on the forensic review conducted by Groom Lake, with the report now available for further review.
The available information, including the Groom Lake report, provides additional context on why Market Maker 1 initially provided about $5,200 in liquidity and the circumstances surrounding the subsequent withdrawal.
The onchain address shown in the BaseScan screenshot provides additional information about the disclosed founder address, although the screenshot alone does not establish ownership of every token associated with the wider project.
The available information, including the Groom Lake analysis, provides additional context on the launch-day trading conditions and the subsequent liquidity movements.
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