Analyst Pins Martin Shkreli as the Potential Creator of the Donald Trump Memecoin

Onchain sleuth ZachXBT is pointing the finger at “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli claiming Shkreli created the latest Donald Trump memecoin, DJT, and manipulated market participants into believing that the token would be officially endorsed by the former president.

Following the token’s parabolic price run of 400% in 4 hours, Arkham Intelligence offered a $150,000 bounty for whoever could identify the creator of the token. ZachXBT publicly announced his submission to the Arkham bounty.

ZachXBT said Shkreli, a former pharmaceuticals CEO and hedge fund manager who was convicted of financial crimes, messaged him in a “panic” after he submitted to the bounty, and created an X Spaces where Shkreli “announced he is the creator of DJT."

Shkreli hosted a Twitter space where he answered questions about the development of the token, including how the liquidity pools were set up and the token minting process, while maintaining the stance that he does not hold the private keys to the deployer wallet.

ZachXBT’s thread went on to point out that one of the admins in DJT’s telegram chat, named CWR, is also an active member within Martin Shkreli’s discord server. However, CWR chose to leave both the telegram and the discord servers last night.

Rumor Mill

Fueled by claims that the token is being led by Donald Trump’s son, Barron Trump, the $DJT memecoin soared on June 17 to a $400 million market capitalization.

News outlet Pirate Wires broke the news that Donald Trump would be launching an official token under the ticker $DJT, led by his son Barron Trump. The claim was corroborated by figures such as Bo Loudon, who is a pro-Trump social media influencer.

Joe McCann, the founder of Asymmetric and a member of the Solana community, also took to social media in a now-deleted tweet that stated, “This morning, I heard from 3 sources about Barron’s involvement in a Trump token on Solana. Pirate Wires broke the news.”

Controversial Launch

The token’s authenticity has been a point of controversy since its launch. DJT was originally minted by its deployer on April 22 via an address funded through Kucoin. The deployer then minted the remaining supply on June 13.

Kucoin however, faces criminal charges for illegal operations in the United States, which has left many reluctant to believe the former president’s son would operate on such an exchange.

The debate heated up further on June 18, with Martin Shkreli publicly making large bets on the coin’s authenticity with well-known traders Alex Wice and GiganticRebirth (GCR).

The DJT token's price plunged 33% in a matter of minutes after GCR offered to wager $100 million that it wasn’t authentic. The token has continued to bleed, now sitting at an $85m market capitalization.