November 4, 2021
Following the success of South Korean survival drama series Squid Game, a cryptocurrency called the “Squidgame Cash” or “SQUID,” dedicated to the mini television series made it into the crypto-pool. The value of this token nosedived by 99.99 percent in recent hours after SQUID creators managed to stunt out a classic “rug pull”. That’s a scam where developers abandon the project and dupe investors off their money. The crypto-coin had registered a 300 percent value growth on October 30, but lost its value from $2,800 (Rs. 2 lakh), to its current price – which is $0.003347 (roughly Rs. 0.25).
The scammers are believed to have collected around $3.3 million (roughly Rs. 22 crore) with this project, a report by Gizmodo claimed.
Inspired by the survival series, an online version of the Squid Game was launched online, and to play the game, participants were required to use the SQUID crypto token. Owing to the popularity of the Netflix series, the SQUID tokens were received in the market with fireworks. But immediately concerns arose around the legitimacy of this SQUID token because only purchasing the crypto-coin was allowed, but selling it was not an option.
The website of the SQUID token which was registered on October 12, less than even a month ago, has now been rendered defunct. While scammers responsible for this crypto rug-pull remain unidentified as of now, the development created ripples on social media. Also, this isn’t the first time a show is used to scam people. Earlier this year, scammers targeted the fans of Disney’s Mandalorian streaming show with a crypto-token called “Mando” – that unfolded into a pump-and-dump scam, news portals had reported at the time.
