The website for the Squid Games cryptocurrency is now off-line and it looks like a classic ‘rug pull’ - a scam that sees developers abandon a crypto project with investors’ cash. Photo: File
NEIL Wilson, the chief market analyst for Markets.com, said this week that last Tuesday Squid – a cryptocurrency based on the Netflix series Squid Games – launched with a price of $0.01 (R0.15).
Over the course of a few days it rose many thousands of percent to more than $2 860 by Monday morning. Specifically in under one week it rose more than 230 000 percent to $2 861.80 as of Monday morning.
“There is a sting in this tale: out of nowhere and even quicker than it rose it abruptly crashed to 0, or $0.003161... The website for the cryptocurrency is now off-line and it looks like a classic ‘rug pull’ - a scam that sees developers abandon a crypto project with investors’ cash,” he said.
Wilson said although touting an official sounding ‘white paper’, there were a couple of clues that should have made it obvious it was a scam. Aside from the dodgy looking website and no affiliation with Netflix, plus a made-up endorsement from Elon Musk, the fact that you were unable to sell tokens you had purchased from the company was a pretty major sign that something was amiss, he said.
He warned that lots of people invest in things they don’t really understand. It is generally a good idea to at least know a little about what you are putting your money into, Wilson said.
philippa.larkin@inl.co.za
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE
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