The scam is called a “rug pull” in cryptocurrency circles, the term referring to when a coin quickly loses its value after its creators cash out their coins, essentially pulling the rug out from underneath investors. At the time of writing, the only statement given by the crypto founders was broadcast via its Telegram group: “Someone is trying to hack our project these days. Not only the Twitter account @GoGoSquidGame but also our smart contract. We are trying to protect it but the price is still abnormal.” “Squid Game Dev does not want to continue running the project as we are depressed from the scammers and is overwhelmed with stress,” the statement read.
SQUID Red Flags Don’t Deter Investors
SQUID was launched last week to skepticism about its legitimacy, owing to red flags like investors being able to buy — but not sell — the crypto and the SQUID website being riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. It piggybacked largely on the popularity of the hit Netflix show. Gizmodo earlier pointed out that SQUID investors can’t buy the coin from mainstream platforms like Coinbase and Binance. Instead, interested parties can only purchase through Pancake Swap, which is a major red flag for crypto investors. The crypto’s whitepaper also mentions liquidity locking as a pre-emptive “anti-dump” measure. As coins like SQUID often suffer from investment surges before swiftly crashing, crypto founders have resorted to temporarily “locking” investors from being able to sell the coins they buy. Crypto monitoring website Coin Market Cap earlier issued a warning that investors may be unable to cash out — which is exactly what happened. Meanwhile, the SQUID website, which has since been taken down, is plagued by obvious language errors and a fake endorsement from PayPal and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. The SQUID Twitter account was closed to replies from outsiders, which further heightened doubts about the cryptocurrency. Since the crypto crash, the account has also become unavailable. The coin’s Telegram channel continues to be operative, however.
Squid Game Soars in Popularity, Attracts Scammers
The nine-episode series Squid Game has reportedly been watched by over 142 million accounts, making it Netflix’s most popular TV show offering to date. Unfortunately, this global popularity has also attracted scammers. In addition to the SQUID scam, malware was recently detected on Google Play in the form of a Squid Game phone wallpaper app. The app has over 5,000 downloads and is reported to victimize unsuspecting users by exposing them to ad fraud and signing them up for expensive SMS services.
