“This is the most shocking thing since Squid Game token.”
Pump and Dump
It really looks like the scam master is back at it again.
Martin Shkreli — the notorious “Pharma Bro” who was just released from prison in May after being sentenced to seven years because of securities fraud — just dumped a massive chunk of his own cryptocurrency, causing its value to tank.
In July, Shkreli launched a new Web3 project called Druglike despite being banned from the pharmaceutical industry for life. He also launched his own cryptocurrency called Martin Shkreli Inu. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that a wallet most likely belonging to Shkreli sold off more than 160 billion tokens, causing its value to drop by 90 percent.
When asked via Discord what happened and why so much of the currency had been sold, Bloomberg says an account believed to be run by Shkreli responded, “I got hacked.”
Rug Pull
If the reports are true, what Shkreli did isn’t exactly illegal, but it sure is nasty.
Industry site Coin Telegraph says rug pull scams can vary, but dumping a massive crypto stake and leaving investors with the worthless leftovers is one strategy. Because it’s a “soft pull” and not a “hard pull” it’s immoral, but not against the law.
Notably, even the most controversial of crypto founders called Shkreli out for his latest choice.
“This is the most shocking thing since Squid Game token,” Dogecoin creator Shibetoshi Nakamoto said on Twitter yesterday.