An anonymous group of hucksters who created the Squid Game cryptocurrency have now officially gotten away with $2.1 million. You may recall Gizmodo telling you that it was a scam on Friday morning. Because investors could buy the crypto, but not sell it, it was obvious. However, many people did not get the warning in the time they needed.
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SQUID reached a peak price of $2861 at the beginning, before falling to $0 at 5:40 a.m. According to CoinMarketCap. ET. This type of theft is commonly known as a rug pull by crypto investors. It occurs when crypto creators quickly cash out their crypto for real money and drain the liquidity pool of the exchange.
SQUID cryptocurrency coin was launched last week. It contained many red flags including a website that had been around for three weeks and was filled with bizarre spelling and grammar errors. SquidGame.cash has taken down the website and all other social media accounts created by scammers. An archived version can be viewed here.
Another red flag was the fact that SQUIDs Telegram channel set up by unknown scammers didn't allow outsiders to comment. The Twitter account also made it impossible to respond to any posts.
The biggest problem was that the coin could not be sold by anyone who bought it. The news media outlets such as the BBC, Yahoo News and Fortune ran headlines about the Squid Game cryptocurrency's rise of 83,000% in just a few days.
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This is only the latest example where scammers are using pop culture to grab media attention. Similar rug-pulling occurred earlier in the year with Mando. Mando used images from Disney+'s Mandalorian TV series without permission from Disney.
This could mean that investors are now more cautious about investing in scammy cryptocurrency projects. This seems unlikely. Scam artists love the crypto space because its incredibly difficult to differentiate the scammers from someone whos earnestly trying to create a legitimate cryptocurrencyperhaps because the idea of making your own currency is inherently fraudulent.
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Traditional currency has been largely the preserve of governments for most of recorded history. Everybody in a society must agree that currency is valuable. There are very few institutions that can give credibility to something as important. Libertarians may tell you the opposite, but we have to disagree.
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Is this to say that you cannot make money trading cryptocurrency? There are many people who make real money selling crypto coins, such as bitcoin and smaller ones like Shiba Inu. It is possible to make money with it, but it won't last forever. People must believe that cryptocurrency is real money. That sentiment can shift from day to day.
The price is not the most important thing when you buy cryptocurrency. First, determine if you are able to sell the coin once you have bought it. It doesn't matter how much you pay for the coin, as the investors in SQUID found out.
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Cryptocurrency can only be worth what another person is willing to pay. If you are prohibited from selling, it is a scam. Sorry.
