‘Pharma bro’ Martin Shkreli claimed he advised Donald and Barron Trump on the creation of the DJT crypto token, which is now valued at tens of millions of dollars.
The mysterious coin has soared in recent days as speculation flared over whether or not the crypto has the Trump family’s blessing.
The coin, which was created in April, has an estimated market capitalization of more than $150 million dollars as of Thursday afternoon.
But Shkreli has a history of fabricating and was convicted of fraud in 2018 and jailed as a result. In 2022, he was released for four years after his seven-year sentence.
The fraudster also claims that Barron received permission from his father to create the coin
Still, Shrekli claims he’s not lying this time: “I have over 1,000 pieces of evidence that I created with Barron,” he told crypto researcher ZachXBT, who shared the update on X.
The Trumps have not commented on the DJT coin or Shrekli’s involvement. But close Trump ally Roger Stone has said the Trumps are “not involved in any way with $DJT.
ZachXBT discovered that Shrekli was behind the crypto — which trades under the ticker DJT, referring to former President Donald J. Trump — after a crypto research firm offered a $150,000 bounty to the sleuth who could discover who was behind it.
ZachXBT won the prize for his work.
“I have receipts where Barron says his father approved it,” Shrekli said on X.
He also claimed during his speech on the platform that he was advising his ‘friend’ Trump on setting up the token.
The fraudster also said the coin was originally Barron’s idea.
Shrekli also noted that he doesn’t control the crypto, saying the Trumps do.
“The keys are with Trump, not with me. I didn’t act alone. I have receipts from Barron saying his father approved it.”
‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shrekli was jailed for fraud in 2018 and released in 2022. He now claims to have helped former President Donald Trump’s son Barron create the crypto token DJT, which has a total value of almost $150 million.
The crypto’s logo features a profile view of Donald Trump emblazoned on a gold coin
Shrekli claims he co-created the DJT crypto with Barron Trump and that the former president’s son controls the venture
The Trumps have not yet released a statement on whether they are actually involved
To prove his point, Shrekli gave up his Instagram account password to social media influencer Mario Nawfal, who later confirmed that ‘Pharma Bro’ had indeed sent a message to the former first son.
“We’re friends, he wants to make money,” Shrekli said of his relationship with Barron.
And while Shrekli claims not to own DJT, he did suggest he is open to profit from the venture should Barron want to throw some money his way.
‘I told Baron that if he made a lot of money from this later, he could give me a low single-digit percentage. If he wanted to, it wasn’t mandatory.’
Barron ‘often said, ‘I’ll give you some tokens.’ I said, ‘No, you can do it afterwards. Let’s make sure it goes well.’ That was my priority,” “Pharma Bro” said on X.
“If this thing reached a billion dollars, I guess I should get something, but I wasn’t sitting here counting dollars.”
Shrekli said this week that he would be open to profiting from the venture if Barron Trump chose to award him some money for his efforts.
‘But if this becomes billions and billions, certainly. I mean, I helped make it. Why not buy some? It wasn’t some crazy financial incentive.”
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.