Martin Shkreli Inu Token Tanks 95% As 'Pharma Bro' Accused Of Crypto Rug Pull

“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli has been accused of selling over 160 billion Martin Shkreli Inu (CRYPTO: MSI) tokens, sending the price down 95% in just over 24 hours.

What Happened: Shkreli launched the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH)-based MSI token tied to his Web3 project “Druglike” in July. A wallet associated with Shkreli was caught dumping 162 billion tokens on the market on Friday, according to blockchain data from Etherscan first reported by Bloomberg.

When Shkreli was questioned about the transfer on Discord, he claimed that he had “been hacked.”

He says he was hacked? https://t.co/fhecZDo07M

— Hack-G (@Hack_G1) August 12, 2022

Market participants familiar with rug pulls were skeptical of his claims, given that most scammers use the same excuse when they stand accused of rug pulls.

See Also: How To Spot A Crypto Scam

A rug pull is a scenario that occurs when the token’s creators lure users into investing in their crypto token, only to later pull liquidity and disappear with the investors' funds. A report from Chainalysis estimated that over $2.8 billion worth of crypto was stolen from rug pull victims in 2021 alone.

“This is the most shocking thing since squid game token,” Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) co-creator Billy Markus commented, seemingly in a sarcastic manner.

Shkreli faced a significant amount of public outrage after he hiked the price of the lifesaving drug Daraprim by 5000%. However, the former hedge fund manager was sentenced to seven years in prison on a separate charge of securities fraud. He was released from his sentence early this May.