Early Theranos Investor to Sell Stock Certificate as NFT

Marc Ostrofsky, an American businessman who was an early investor in the famed biotech scam Theranos, now wants to recoup his investment by auctioning off his Series A stock certificate signed by none other than Elizabeth Holmes as a non-fungible token.

The NFT, aptly titled “The Rise and Fall of Theranos,” has debuted on the OpenSea marketplace with a starting price of 1 ether ($4,044).

The token will be redeemable for the actual certificate by the winner.

The auction will run through December 23, which is the penultimate day of jury deliberation before Christmas.

According to Ostrofsky, he issued the NFT to capitalize on the potential afforded by modern technology:

Over the course of my career, I’ve tried to continually identify hot new trends in the marketplace to capture the ‘first mover’ advantage.

He invested $100,000 in Theranos during its Series A fundraising round.

In 2015, the former Silicon Valley darling hit a peak worth of $10 billion, making Holmes America’s wealthiest and youngest self-made female billionaire.

However, an inquiry launched by the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou resulted in the downfall of the firm, whose groundbreaking blood-testing technology was shown to be a forgery.

Throughout seven days of evidence, Holmes attempted to place the blame on former Theranos CEO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was also her boyfriend. Using the Svengali argument, she portrayed Balwani as an abuser who had complete control over her life.

Patrick

Coincu News