Hunter Biden, son of former U.S. President, announces investigation into LAPTOP token launch
Hunter Biden, son of former U.S. President, announced an investigation into the launch of the LAPTOP token, stating that he has commissioned Delaware-based forensic firm Groom Lake to verify all transactions on the launch day. He denied that his team cashed out, claiming that the 300 million tokens held by the founders remain in the same wallet and have not moved since the launch on October 7; his personal share is locked for six months, after which it will be released over two years.
The investigation revealed that Market Maker 1 received $500,000 in startup funds before the launch but only invested about 1% into opening liquidity, approximately $5,200, and less than 30,000 tokens. The main pool tokens accounted for less than 0.003% of the original supply of 1 billion tokens. The report stated that a $6 buy order was enough to push the price up by 5%.
The extremely low liquidity caused the price to rise from $0.05 to about $317 in less than two minutes, with a drop of about 98% from the peak within the first hour. 84 seconds after the price peaked, Market Maker 1 withdrew funds during the sell-off, with the available funds to absorb sell orders dropping from $16,157 to zero.
He cited the investigation stating that Market Maker 1's decentralized exchange liquidity position yielded about $686,000, part of which needs to be returned to the investors; net inflows from Market Maker 2's related transactions were about $2.18 million. The two firms collectively gained nearly $3 million shortly after the launch. He demanded that the market makers responsible for the launch issues buy back and destroy the tokens.
The token launched on September 9. He stated that he takes ultimate responsibility, will not withdraw from the project, and plans to destroy most of the unclaimed tokens from the initial airdrop next week. This airdrop accounted for 10% of the total supply. He also mentioned that the project had promised to lock the team's tokens and release disclosure documents, with the initial intention including mocking similar celebrity tokens and raising funds for related charities.
Buyers were retail investors rushing into the shallow pool at launch, while sellers were traders exiting after the peak and market makers withdrawing liquidity. The price path was driven by a lack of liquidity, not by transfers from the founder's wallet. Funds flowed from buy orders into the shallow pool and then left the tradable range when liquidity was withdrawn; the beneficiaries were accounts related to the two market makers, while the pressured party was buyers who transacted at high prices and subsequently lost counterparties.
The 300 million founder tokens remaining untouched only indicate that the team address has not transferred out, which does not change the fact that the opening pool only had 0.003% of the supply. Destroying unclaimed airdrops will reduce circulation but will not recover the dollars that have been withdrawn from the pool.
Source: Public information
ABAB AI Insight
Hunter Biden's public profile has long been tied to materials from a laptop that surfaced around 2019, and in 2024 he was convicted in federal gun possession and tax cases, later receiving a pardon. The LAPTOP token name references this laptop, with the project team contrasting it with celebrity tokens associated with the Trump family: the latter is described as maximizing extraction, while he differentiates himself with locked tokens and disclosure documents. After the September launch, he acknowledged the price curve as being 'like every celebrity exit token,' and only provided the forensic report in October.
The capital path is not in the founder's wallet but in the market-making contract. The $500,000 startup funds only entered the pool as about $5,200, effectively handing pricing power to the first batch of buy orders. Withdrawing liquidity 84 seconds after the peak meant pulling out the dollars available to absorb sell orders; the $686,000 and $2.18 million are recorded in market-making related accounts, not against the 300 million founder tokens that have not moved. The destruction next week will involve the unclaimed portion of the airdrop, which accounts for 10% of the total supply, burning uncirculated inventory, not already cashed-out dollars.
Comparable examples include celebrity tokens from 2024 to 2025: Trump-related tokens and Hawk Tuah-related tokens, which had names listed before liquidity, completing price discovery within minutes of launch. The industry is in a liquidation phase after expansion, where celebrity tokens no longer rely on stories for financing but depend on the depth of the opening pool to determine who exits. Professional market makers like GSR and Wintermute charge based on inventory and spreads in other projects, but this time, two 'professional trading firms' were named, with the report not directly attributing profits to specific licenses.
This represents a transfer of pricing power. The mechanism is that the quotes from automated market makers equal the ratio of inventory on both sides of the pool; when inventory is compressed to 0.003% of the supply, prices no longer reflect demand but rather how shallow the pool is. Withdrawing liquidity to zero clears the tradable funds, leaving subsequent sell orders without counterparties, resulting in instant on-chain losses. Locking tokens can prevent the team address from moving, but it cannot stop the party hired to provide liquidity from exiting first.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Locking tokens stops the team but not the pool.
- Prices in a shallow pool reflect inventory ratios, not consensus.
- The first to withdraw liquidity decides whether subsequent sellers can exit.