‘Pharma brother’ 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 risen in recent days as speculation has arisen about whether or not the cryptocurrency has the blessing of the Trump family.
The coin that was created in April has an estimated market capitalization of more than $150 million, as of Thursday afternoon.
But Shkreli has a history of making things up and, as a result, was convicted of fraud and jailed in 2018. He was released four years into his seven-year sentence in 2022.
The scammer also claims that Barron got his father’s approval to create the coin.
Still, Shrekli claims he’s not lying this time: “I have over 1,000 proofs 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 symbol DJT in reference to former President Donald J. Trump, after a crypto investigation firm offered a $150,000 reward to the detective who could discover who was behind it .
ZachXBT won the award for its work.
“I have receipts from Barron that say his father approved it,” Shrekli said in X.
He also claimed while speaking on the platform that he advised his “friend” Trump on how to set up the token.
The scammer also said that the coin was originally Barron’s idea.
Shrekli also noted that he has no control over the cryptocurrency, saying the Trumps do.
“The keys are in Trump’s hands, not 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 DJT crypto token, which has a total value of nearly $150 million.
The cryptocurrency’s logo features a profile view of Donald Trump emblazoned on a gold coin.
Shrekli alleges that he created the DJT crypto with Barron Trump and that the former president’s son has control of the company
The Trumps have not yet issued a statement on whether or not they are actually involved.
To prove his point, Shrekli gave his Instagram account password to social media influencer Mario Nawfal, who later confirmed that ‘Pharma Bro’ did indeed message the former first son.
“We’re friends, he wants to make money,” Shrekli said of his relationship with Barron.
And while Shrekli claims to not own any DJT, he did propose that he’s open to profiting from the company, should Barron want to pony up some money.
‘I told Baron that if he made a lot of money doing this later, he could pay me a low single-digit percentage. If you wanted, it wasn’t mandatory.’
Barron’ said many times, ‘Let me give you some chips.’ I said, ‘No, you can do it later.’ Let’s make sure everything goes well. That was my priority,’ said ‘Pharma Bro’ in X.
“If this thing hit $1 billion, I think I should get something, but I wasn’t sitting here counting dollars.”
Shrekli said this week that he would be willing to cash in on the company if Barron Trump decided to give him some cash for his efforts.
‘But if this reached billions, sure. I mean, I helped make it. Why not get some? It wasn’t some crazy financial incentive.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
