Squid scam: Trend coin plunges to nearly zero after scammers steal millions from investors

“Squid Game” over... Halloween is past us, but trends based on Netflix's "biggest-ever" new series aren't. A crypto coin called Squid launched last week at $0.01. The “play to earn” currency professed to let buyers play online games based on the South Korean thriller. Three days later, Squid was up 44,100%, to $4.42. As it gained media coverage, Squid soared 23 million percent between October 26 and November 1, hitting nearly $2.9K. Yesterday it crashed to nearly $0.

• “Rug pull” strategy: It's assumed that Squid's creators sold all the coins for real money, causing the coin to plummet, from $2.8K to nearly $0.
• Scam vibes: Creators cashed out, stealing $3.3M from investors who never had a chance to sell Squid coins because of a buy-only restriction imposed by the developers.

Cracks in the honeycomb... There were red flags: a typo-ridden Squid website (“frist game,” “need pay the ticket”) and a leadership team that didn't exist on Google or LinkedIn — like: CEO Kevin Sam, "Founder of Squid Game." (BTW: Netflix reportedly said it was not affiliated with the coin). But Squid isn’t the only parody coin that’s surged recently:

• Coin explosion: Creating alt-coins is relatively simple, and about 100 new cryptos are created daily, adding to the 13.5K already in existence.
• Coins can be listed on decentralized exchanges as soon as they’re created, with virtually no due diligence.
• Coin crowding: In January, Bitcoin made up 70% of total crypto value. Now it makes up less than half as trend-driven altcoins have gained traction. Two meme-inspired coins, Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, are among the top 10 cryptocurrencies.