The son of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had criticized President Trump’s own such token, called a memecoin, as a “grift.” Critics immediately said the younger Mr. Biden’s was no different.
In a social media post Tuesday night on X, Mr. Biden presented his new coin partly as a mechanism to make charitable donations. He did not address whether and how he would personally benefit, but creators of memecoins can profit from transaction fees or if their own tokens rise in value.
Memecoins are akin to collectibles, with no intrinsic value. Their worth is driven purely by demand and speculation.
The token’s name refers to his laptop, the source of controversy when it was discovered in a computer repair shop and its contents leaked before the 2020 election. Materials on the computer added fuel to concerns about his foreign business dealings; the Biden campaign rejected the accusations.