Hunter Biden is defending his LAPTOP memecoin ahead of its Wednesday launch, positioning the project as an effort to reclaim a controversy that has followed him for years. At the same time, he criticized Donald Trump’s TRUMP token, calling it a “grift.”

Biden described LAPTOP as a project centered on “resilience, redemption and recovery.” Under its planned distribution, nearly one million wallets that lost money on TRUMP could receive LAPTOP tokens.

In an X post published during the early Asian hours Wednesday, Biden acknowledged the skepticism surrounding the project. He questioned why something that had been repeatedly exploited by people seeking to profit should not be reclaimed and given a different meaning.

Biden pointed to TRUMP’s decline from its 2025 peak, saying nearly one million wallets had suffered combined losses of roughly $3.8 billion. LAPTOP plans to allocate 20% of its supply to community airdrops, including tokens designated for wallets that lost money holding TRUMP.

The tokenomics also include a 30% allocation linked to political, cryptocurrency and cultural predictions. When a prediction is correct, the corresponding tokens will be burned. Tokens associated with predictions that fail will instead be directed to charity.

Founders, including Biden, will receive a further 30% of the supply. Those holdings will be subject to lockup and vesting arrangements, according to Biden.

He also sought to make clear that buyers should not expect him or other members of the project to artificially increase LAPTOP’s value. Biden presented the memecoin as a means of expressing an idea rather than simply owning an asset for potential financial gains.

His defense comes after the project drew considerable criticism from crypto traders earlier this week.

Kraken removed a promotional post for LAPTOP after facing backlash from traders. Andrew Callaghan, the journalist and Channel 5 creator, also distanced himself from the project after his audience was included in a planned token distribution.

Base, the Coinbase-developed blockchain on which LAPTOP is set to launch, emphasized that it has no partnership with the project. Base founder Jesse Pollak said the project had approached his team, but Base ultimately made a deliberate choice not to assist with the token’s design or promotion.

The memecoin takes its name and narrative from the laptop controversy involving Biden. Data reportedly extracted from the device included emails related to his overseas business dealings, as well as private photographs, messages and videos involving drug use and his personal life. The laptop became a recurring source of political attacks and generated thousands of memes online.

Biden is now attempting to turn that history into the foundation of LAPTOP, reframing an issue that was used against him for years as the central theme of the token.

In his framing of the project, the laptop was once used as a political weapon. LAPTOP is his attempt to turn that same controversy into a cryptocurrency.