Autor Cointelegraph by Yohan Yun

Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.

Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.

Fnality has named former Bank of England deputy governor Jon Cunliffe to chair its UK board as the blockchain settlement company develops euro and US dollar payment systems.The company said Thursday that Jochen Metzger, a former Deutsche Bundesbank director general for payments and settlement systems, had joined its European subsidiary’s supervisory board and was expected to chair it. Ron Berndsen, a former senior official at the Dutch central bank, also joined the board.Fnality’s sterling payment system launched in 2023 and is regulated by the Bank of England. It enables market participants to settle obligations using central bank money balances.The company said its blockchain settlement infrastructure is designed to support tokenized asset markets and banks’ activity in stablecoins and tokenized deposits.“As the tokenisation of financial markets gathers pace, settlement in the safest assets available will be crucial to maintaining financial stability,” Cunliffe said in the announcement.Fnality has established a subsidiary in Eschborn, Germany, to develop its proposed euro payment system. It has also set up Fnality Bank U.S. in Stamford, Connecticut, where it is developing plans for a dollar system and engaging with US regulators.The London-based fintech raised $136 million in a Series C funding round in September 2025, with participation by investors including Temasek, Euroclear and Goldman Sachs, according to data compiled by Traxcn.Related: Acting CFTC chair to join MoonPay after leaving agencyCointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Hunter Biden has denied profiting from his LAPTOP memecoin after its launch-day price crash, adding that neither he nor his team had sold tokens.Several X users accused the LAPTOP project of a “rug pull” after the memecoin lost more than 95% of its value in the first hour of trading on Wednesday. At the time of writing, the new token traded at $0.8562, according to CoinGecko data.“The team’s allocation is locked. Nobody on our side sold, and nobody could have,” Biden said in an X post Wednesday. “I, personally, have not made a single dollar.”Biden blamed the price action on insufficient liquidity and “snipers,” which are trading bots that quickly swoop up tokens when trading opens.The Base memecoin takes its name from a MacBook Hunter Biden reportedly left at a repair shop in 2019. Trump allies used the New York Post’s reporting on files purportedly from the device against him and his father, former US President Joe Biden, during the 2020 election.Before launching his own memecoin, Biden slammed the Trump family’s crypto ventures. In an Aug. 21 post, Biden said World Liberty Financial used political influence and leverage to benefit its founders.Biden did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.Related: Joe Biden’s son to launch memecoin, will send to TRUMP holders: WSJLAPTOP team announces liquidity incentives and token burnsThe LAPTOP team defended the launch in a community update by claiming it held no token presale and made no allocations to investors or influencers. It said the contract address, token allocations, a Hacken security audit and a white paper were published before trading began.“There was no stealth deployment, no hidden supply, and no surprise to benefit insiders,” the team said in a Medium post.It claimed the initial pool launched at $0.05 per token, but the market maker’s liquidity was insufficient to meet demand.LAPTOP added it would deploy 4 million tokens, or 0.4% of the total supply, as liquidity incentives for Aerodrome pools, starting at midnight UTC on Thursday. It also announced plans to burn 10 million tokens within the first week of launch through its predictions program, equivalent to 1% of the original total supply.Related: California Senate passes bill to ban memecoin issuance by public officialsAccording to the project’s disclosures, founders are allocated 300 million tokens, or 30% of the 1 billion token supply. Those tokens are locked for six months and then vest monthly over the following 24 months.Another 30% is allocated to predictions tied to political, cultural and crypto events. Tokens are burned when specified outcomes occur and allocated to charity otherwise. The disclosures say prediction-related burns affect unvested tokens.The disclosures reserve 2% of the total supply for wallets that lost money on the TRUMP memecoin and 8% for eligible subscribers to Biden’s “Where’s Hunter” Substack newsletter. A separate 10% is allocated to future airdrops at the foundation’s discretion.Nansen tracks wallet losses as Bubblemaps flags fresh holdersNansen data shared with Cointelegraph on Thursday showed one LAPTOP wallet with an unrealized loss of $117,800 and another with a paper loss of $12,300.Two other wallets showed unrealized gains of $13,100 and $1,800. None of those four addresses had sold LAPTOP at the time of the snapshot. The analysis covered five selected wallets.Nansen also recorded 46,675 buy transactions and 16,038 sell transactions during the 24-hour period covered by its data, involving 20,085 unique buyers and 8,714 unique sellers.Meanwhile, blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps said Wednesday that 60% of LAPTOP’s top-holder wallets had no prior activity.In a follow-up post, it defined “fresh” wallets as those funded within the previous 10 days and said most had been funded on launch day.Magazine: Is Bitcoin too volatile to risk your retirement on?

[Update, Sept. 9, 1 p.m. UTC: Updates LAPTOP’s price performance and volume after its first hour of trading.]Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP memecoin fell 95.7% in its hour of trading on Wednesday, as the son of former US President Joe Biden officially entered the market for politically themed cryptocurrencies.The token, issued on Ethereum layer-2 network Base, traded at $4.36 at 1:00 pm UTC, after opening at $199.50, according to CoinGecko data. It recorded more than $3 million in trading volume. “The symbol they used to try to end me is now a symbol of resilience, redemption and recovery,” Biden said in an X post on Wednesday, responding to public backlash. Biden also said he understood the cynicism around memecoins, called President Donald Trump’s token a “grift” and warned buyers not to expect him or anyone else to make LAPTOP more valuable.The memecoin is promoted as an attempt to reclaim the “laptop narrative,” which centers on a MacBook that Biden reportedly left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019. The New York Post published emails and other files purported to have come from the device before the 2020 presidential election. Trump allies used the material against Hunter Biden and his father, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.Related: Joe Biden’s son to launch memecoin, will send to TRUMP holders: WSJOn Monday, Biden teased LAPTOP on X with a post showing the token’s ticker, accompanied by a montage of media coverage of the laptop. The announcement drew criticism from the likes of digital investigator Stephen Findeisen, known as Coffeezilla, who called LAPTOP a “shitcoin” and urged his followers not to buy it. X account “scupytrooples” told Biden there was “still time to walk this back.”Base founder Jesse Pollak said in an X post that the project had contacted his team, but Base made a “conscious decision” not to help with the token’s design or promotion.Biden did not respond to Cointelegraph’s query before publication. LAPTOP disclosures set 2% of token supply for TRUMP token losersBiden’s earlier criticism of the Trump family’s crypto ventures also gave traders a ready-made hypocrisy argument. In an Aug. 21 post, Biden accused World Liberty Financial of using political influence, centralized controls and leverage to benefit its founders, while saying the crypto industry deserved better. He has now launched a memecoin built around his own political identity, with founders allocated a chunk of the supply.Related: California Senate passes bill to ban memecoin issuance by public officialsThe project’s disclosures describe LAPTOP as a digital collectible with no utility, ownership rights, voting rights, yield or profit-sharing rights. The token has a fixed supply of 1 billion, with 350 million tokens circulating at launch.Founders, including Biden, are allocated 300 million tokens, or 30% of the supply. Those tokens are locked for six months and then vested monthly over the following 24 months. Another 30% is tied to political, cultural and crypto predictions, with tokens burned when specified outcomes occur and released to charity if they do not.The disclosures also outline airdrop figures, with the initial round representing 10% of the total supply. Of those, 2% is reserved for wallets that lost money on TRUMP and 8% for eligible subscribers to Biden’s “Where’s Hunter” Substack newsletter. A separate 10% future airdrop is to be distributed at the foundation’s discretion. That means 20% is allocated to airdrops overall, while the specific TRUMP-loss allocation is capped at 2%.Magazine: Is Bitcoin too volatile to risk your retirement on?