Scammers Behind 'Squid Game' Cryptocurrency Reportedly Walk Away With $2.1 Million From Investors

Cryptocurrency scammers made off with an estimated $2.1 million from a “Squid Game” crypto scam, Gizmondo reports.

The SQUID cryptocurrency—yes, the one that grew nearly 2,400% over a 24-hour span last week—saw a peak at $2,861 at around 5:35 a.m. Monday, before falling straight to $0, CoinMarketCap shows. Gizmondo shares that the “rug pull” style theft—which many on the internet believe took place—means the crypto-creators cashed out for actual money.

Still, the not-affiliated-with-Netflix coin was only released one week ago and its SquidGame.cash website no longer exists, as well as its social media accounts, which Twitter had already flagged. A big signal that the coin was fradulent was the fact that those who purchased the currency were reportedly unable to sell it.

“We have received multiple reports that the website and socials are no longer functional & the users are not able to sell this token in Pancakeswap,” CoinMarketCap said in a warning to investors before the scam went full-force. “Please do your own due diligence and exercise extreme caution. This project, while clearly inspired by the Netflix show of the same name, is not affiliated with the official IP.”

CoinDesk also reports that the project’s developers shared on their Telegram channel that they had enough of the project due to run-ins with “hackers.”

“Someone is trying to hack our project these days,” the project reportedly shared. 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 coin’s presale took place on Oct. 20 and supposedly “sold out in 1 second,” according to its white paper, which contained grammatical errors.