Many people have watched or heard of the widely successful Netflix show, “Squid Game.” For those who are unfamiliar with the show, “Squid Game” is a South Korean fictional thriller drama that revolves around desperate contestants who willingly participate in deadly versions of a children’s game for the chance to win the alluring multi-million dollar prize.

Image: Netflix

“Squid Game” became one of Netflix’s biggest hits and gained the attention of audiences worldwide. According to Bloomberg’s reports, 87 million people finished the first season of the show. It caught the attention of many brands who created “Squid Game” merchandise to catch the attention of the show’s fans.

The show even had a cryptocurrency (or digital currency) named after it. The stock very suddenly became popular and its price soared shortly after it was first launched on October 20, 2021. The SQUID crypto began at $0.012 per share on October 26 and quickly rose to $2,860 per share before it plummeted all the way to $0.

Its investors were met with the devastating news that the creator of the SQUID tokens cashed out all the tokens for more than 3 million dollars. There were many warnings about the currency being a scam, but those who tried to sell their SQUID shares reported that they were unable to do so. Even after the warnings about this crypto, about 40,000 people still held onto their shares up to when the SQUID crypto disappeared completely. Many angry investors have accepted the crypto as a scam.

Before it was taken down, the website for the Squid Game related cryptocurrency claimed to be affiliated with Netflix and Microsoft. Microsoft hasn’t made a statement on this subject, but Netflix has publicly stated that they were not involved in the project. Nevertheless, the website was an obvious scam with the various grammatical errors and bizarre spellings on it. Any website and social media accounts associated with the SQUID crypto were taken down. The archived version of the website is still accessible from https://archive.md/nF8hP.

Crypto investors identify the scam as a “rug pull.” This type of scam occurs when the crypto draws in buyers and stops any further activities, once they make enough, in order to keep the money made from the sales.  

Future buyers of cryptocurrencies are warned to take extra precautions and to do proper research on a cryptocurrency before investing their money in it. While there are some legitimate cryptocurrencies out there, you should take the SQUID scam as a fair warning that research needs to be done before any investments are made.