The Squid Game Cryptocurrency Scam: Be Extra Careful Before Making An Investment Decision
You have probably heard about Bitcoin before, how its price has boomed from $1 when it was first launched to around $60,000 as of today. But what exactly is this money? Throughout history, the form of money has grown from having various goods as mediums of exchange to having government-issued currencies (fiat money), whether it be in paper or digital form. Yet in today’s world, another form of money known as cryptocurrencies had gradually slid into our society.
Different from digital fiat currencies that are typically issued by governments, cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that rely upon cryptography. Rather than traditional fiat currencies that are controlled under a centralized system of central banks and governments, cryptocurrencies use a decentralized server where blockchain technology is involved. Blockchain is a constantly growing, encrypted string of data blocks where new sets of recorded data blocks are added to the previous ones. It is a record of transactions, a decentralized database distributed on multiple computers at the same time. All digital coins run on blockchain as all cryptocurrency units are created from the chain of preceding blocks. As no one owns the data in the blockchain, everyone shares the data and has full control over their own digital wallets where cryptocurrencies are kept in a wallet with a private (decryption) and a public (encryption) key.
By now, there are nearly 6,000 cryptocurrencies out there in the world, and bitcoin is just one of them, being the oldest and the most popular coin of all time.
If you surf on the internet a lot, you would have probably heard a lot about Squid Game, a Netflix show that has been a global hit with heated discussions all over social media. Not long ago, a cryptocurrency based on the show was launched with the name SQUID, a supposed “play-to-earn” crypto token where buyers could use in a new online Squid Game themed game and earn more tokens if they win. About two weeks after the SQUID cryptocurrency was launched, its price peaked at $2,860 and then later plummeted to $0–all in the same day. Apparently, this happens to be a classic “rug pull”, which is a type of exit scam when the developers of crypto quickly cash out their coins, abandoning the project and eloping the investors’ money. Ironically, this is just a “real life” squid game as scammers are the “winners” who made off $3.3 million with this SQUID crypto token. Despite the fact that Gizmodo did warn people about this being an obvious scam before the collapse happened; there were warning signs where investors could only buy the SQUID tokens but not sell them, and that the game website itself contained lots of typos and other grammatical errors.
As there isn’t any regulation on cryptocurrencies, they can sometimes be exposed to hackers and other criminal activities. Thus, investors should always be careful when investing in such mediums, not to mention that their prices are extremely volatile. As in this case of the SQUID token, its creators easily pulled off the rug pull to scam all the investors’ money.
Although trading with cryptocurrencies is relatively risky and speculative, it can also be a good investment. So folks, do your research and be extra cautious before making any investment decision!
Sources:
Best, Raynor de. “Number of Crypto Coins 2013-2021.” Statista, 3 Nov. 2021, https:// www.statista.com/statistics/863917/number-crypto-coins-tokens/.
“Bitcoin Price Today, BTC to USD Live, Marketcap and Chart.” CoinMarketCap, https:// coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/.
“Squid Game Price Today, Squid to USD Live, Marketcap and Chart.” CoinMarketCap, https:// coinmarketcap.com/currencies/squid-game/.
Novak, Matt. “Squid Game Cryptocurrency Scammers Make off with $3.3 Million.” Gizmodo, Gizmodo, 2 Nov. 2021, https://gizmodo.com/squid-game-cryptocurrency-scammers-make off-with-2-1-m-1847972824.