Earlier this week, the SQUID cryptocurrency, inspired by popular Netflix series Squid Game, raised scam suspicions after its value dipped by 99.99 percent and its website went defunct. Now, the trading value of this Squid token has soared by 600 percent in the last 24 hours, data by CoinMarketCap revealed on Thursday. Currently, the token is trading at $0.09295 (roughly Rs. 6) despite an ongoing investigation into the potential “rug pull” case. For now, it is estimated that the anonymous creator(s) of this token have vanished with around $3.3 million (roughly Rs. 22 crore).
The rather shocking development comes at a time when Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, has initiated an inquiry into the SQUID token that witnessed multi-fold growth in recent days. The gaming altcoin was created on the Binance Smart Chain.
“Our security team is currently tracing those funds. These types of scam projects have become all too common in the DeFi (decentralised finance) space as speculative crypto investors seeking the next ‘moon shot’ are quick to invest in projects without doing the appropriate due diligence,” news portal Barrons quoted a Binance spokesperson as saying.
The website for the SQUID token was registered on October 12 and its whitepaper was released in the last week of October. The webpage of this whitepaper has been dysfunctional for over three days now.
The token was required by the players of the online version of Squid Game, based on the South Korean series that broke all viewership records on Netflix
Owing to the popularity of the series, the SQUID tokens were welcomed by fans with open arms.
Soon after, concerns around the legitimacy of this SQUID token gained heat because it only had the option to purchase the cryptocurrency, but selling it was not a choice.
Scam they will give you the website so you can withdraw and the site will ask for your wallet seedphrase?!! What a scam. Now they just blocked me. https://t.co/IGIVMuewyG pic.twitter.com/S5YEMj2Q1F
— Michelle Jariol (@MichelleJariol) October 23, 2021
Details about the identity as well as the whereabouts of the SQUID token creator(s) remain unknown.
As part of its ongoing investigation into the case, Binance will be helping appropriate law enforcement agencies with its findings and information to get to the depth of the matter.
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