SEC Shield Protects Hunter Biden After LAPTOP Token Crash
The SEC's February 2025 staff statement cleared the way for meme tokens to be traded without securities registration, and that ruling is now being cited as a shield by Hunter Biden in the wake of his LAPTOP token's epic collapse.
Hunter Biden did not promise any equity, ownership, or profit throughout all of his LAPTOP promotion, and he specifically stated in the Medium launch update that 'You should not expect us or anyone else to make this token more valuable for you.'
The LAPTOP tokenomics do not exactly mirror a typical rug pull setup either. Even with the token spread, LAPTOP still collapsed from a fully diluted valuation of $144 billion two minutes after launch to $5 billion thirty minutes later.
The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance ruled that meme tokens do not meet the Howey test's profits from the efforts of others requirement, writing: 'Neither meme coin purchasers nor holders are protected by the federal securities laws.'