ZachXBT wins $150,000 bounty for exposing Martin Shkreli as DJT token creator
Quick Take
- Arkham gave crypto sleuth ZachXBT the $150,000 bounty for identifying “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli to be behind the DJT token.
Blockchain analytics platform Arkham awarded a $150,000 bounty to crypto sleuth ZachXBT, who first revealed that controversial entrepreneur Martin Shkreli was behind the Donald Trump-themed DJT token on Wednesday.
“This bounty has been solved by ZachXBT. At 11:49 p.m. UTC Zach submitted definitive evidence that Martin Shkreli is the creator of the $DJT token,” Arkham wrote in an X post.
“Thanks for going through with the bounty,” ZachXBT said in a reply to the post.
The DJT token went viral earlier this week as it was said to have direct ties to former U.S. president Donald Trump, according to an unsubstantiated news report by Pirate Wires. The rumor triggered DJT to soar over 300% at one point on Tuesday.
In the meantime, Shkreli, a securities fraud convict, had been supporting the unverified story that DJT is the official token of the Trump campaign. He also challenged crypto trader GCR with a $100 million wager on the legitimacy of the DJT token, which Shkreli later claimed that GCR had withdrawn from the bet.
Late Tuesday night, Arkham announced a $150,000 bounty to the first person to prove the identity of the creator of DJT, to which well-known blockchain investigator ZachXBT offered to take up the bounty.
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Not long after, ZachXBT posted on X that Shkreli had sent him a direct message stating that he created the token with “Barron,” which appears to point to the former U.S. president Donald Trump’s son, Barron Trump. However, there is no evidence yet that Barron Trump collaborated with Shkreli. Later that night, Shkreli admitted that he created DJT on an X Spaces he hosted.
Shkreli gained notoriety and the nickname “pharma bro” in 2015 when, as the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, he dramatically increased the price of a life-saving medication by over 5,000%, making the drug much less affordable for many patients. In 2017, Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison for securities fraud in a separate case, and he was released early in 2022.
Shkreli remains adamant that he can prove the involvement of Trump and/or his family in the creation of DJT, according to his tweet on Wednesday. Trump’s campaign did not respond to The Block’s repeated requests for comment on the matter.
The price of DJT rose 20.72% in the past 24 hours at the time of writing to trade at $0.01549, according to GeckoTerminal data.
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