DJT has lowered the flag and clarified the brief Meme farce

Author: Protos

Compiled by: Shenchao TechFlow

In the past few days, a chaotic event involving Barron Trump, the Trump family, news media related to Peter Thiel, Martin Shkreli, Arkham, and many other participants has swept through Crypto Twitter.

Here’s a summary of the entire event.

The Trigger

Initially, a "new media" platform related to Peter Thiel, Pirate Wires, tweeted: "According to 'some conversations,' Trump’s son Barron Trump will be in charge of the official Donald Trump token." This news raised suspicions and speculation, as the only evidence at the time was a contract address casually added by Pirate Wires head Michael Solana.

Due to the low liquidity of the token at that time, the release of the contract address only increased doubts about the project's authenticity.

Then Martin Shkreli joined the farce, tweeting that a certain Twitter account "looks like an official account," but again provided no compelling evidence.

Next, Martin Shkreli created a Space called "$DJT is real," once again claiming that the token was the official Trump coin launched by Barron Trump, but still provided no evidence.

The Truth Begins to Surface

Soon after, many KOL accounts began spreading the news that the official Trump token $DJT indeed exists.

Then, Martin Shkreli and Bo Loudon (one of Barron Trump’s best friends) joined another Space, where Bo Loudon stated, "Barron is indeed partially involved in this project," but he quickly backtracked, saying, "This is a rumor; I heard it from another friend."

Then Bo Loudon deleted his tweet stating "$DJT is the only real Trump token."

As public sentiment towards $DJT declined, Martin Shkreli became more active on Twitter, tweeting that Polymarket's prediction market regarding "whether Trump himself is involved in DJT" would "by definition" be determined as "yes."

Soon, Martin Shkreli's tweets and discussions revolved almost entirely around the DJT token.

A Gamble?

After publicly claiming the Trump family was involved in the DJT token, Martin Shkreli proposed a bet, stating he was willing to wager with anyone capable regarding the $DJT meme coin. Subsequently, cryptocurrency investor Alex Wice stated that if Martin Shkreli could hold the funds, he would bet $1 million that $DJT is fake. Martin Shkreli replied, "Accept the bet; how high can you go?"

However, before this bet could be established, a larger whale intervened: legendary trader GCR offered to bet $100 million against Martin Shkreli that Donald Trump has nothing to do with the token. In the end, Martin Shkreli agreed to the bet and replied, "Set it your way."

However, even with well-known cryptocurrency figures like Jordan Fish (@cobie) involved, GCR and Martin Shkreli failed to reach a betting agreement, no funds were held, no formal bet was made, and thus no final win or loss occurred.

All Talk, No Action

The bet ultimately did not materialize, but that did not stop Martin Shkreli from claiming he won the bet and celebrating the "victory" while stating that GCR had withdrawn. But just as he was celebrating this false victory, the on-chain information tracking company Arkham tweeted a $150,000 reward for the first person who could definitively prove the creator of the $DJT token.

Within two hours, on-chain detective ZachXBT applied for the reward, which seemed to cause some panic for Martin Shkreli.

According to the timeline posted by ZachXBT, after he explicitly applied for the reward, Martin Shkreli panicked and directly messaged ZachXBT claiming he was involved in the creation of $DJT.

Subsequently, Martin Shkreli held another Space, publicly admitting for the first time that he was involved in and created $DJT.

The Start of the Farce

After failing to secure $100 million and being awkwardly exposed as the token's founder, while also losing the banner of "Trump family support," Martin Shkreli took to Twitter again, spending nearly half a day desperately trying to convince anyone willing to listen that he indeed created the token with Barron Trump.

If Martin Shkreli's words are to be believed, the story goes like this:

Martin Shkreli collaborated with a 17-year-old minor named Cameron, who had connections with Bo Loudon and Barron Trump. Allegedly, Cameron contacted Barron and heard that Barron was interested in launching a meme coin before his brother Donald Trump, Jr. They sought Martin Shkreli's help.

Martin Shkreli utilized Chat-GPT and discussed with many influential figures in Crypto how to create good financial incentives and mechanisms. Martin Shkreli wrote the code for the token, which was ultimately launched by Barron Trump.

The token remained dormant for a while as the three individuals involved tried to persuade numerous funds and investors to invest in the project. Martin Shkreli stated it was difficult to get anyone to commit to investing, but he also mentioned that Barron Trump told him Donald Trump himself supported the concept.

Martin Shkreli insisted he had little motivation to be involved and had hardly purchased any tokens, absolutely would not exploit those seventeen or eighteen-year-olds, and never wished for his involvement to be revealed.

While these statements may be true, it is hard to believe that Martin Shkreli himself never wanted to be exposed for his involvement in the project, after all, he firmly asserted the token's authenticity from the beginning and repeatedly hinted that he had spoken with insiders.

Martin Shkreli also claimed that it was Barron Trump who leaked project information to Pirate Wire initially. However, he also stated that the leak occurred earlier than they expected, and the project was not ready to go live.

By the end of yesterday, Martin Shkreli himself was no longer certain whether Barron Trump would publicly confirm his involvement in the matter and "hesitantly claimed that Donald Trump would discuss this token."