Squid Game Rug Pull Cost Shanghai Man His Life Savings
Last Updated on 7 November 2021 by CryptoTips.eu
Crypto has already brought the English language many new words and terms. Thirteen years ago, no one had ever heard of Bitcoin, Ethereum or blockchain, until Satoshi Nakamoto invented it.
Ever since then, we came up with terms like to the moon, hodl, pump and dump, DeFi, Silk Road, yield farming and many more. Unfortunately for the cryptosphere, we’ve also been introduced to hacks, rug pulls and coin mixers.
Rug pull and coin mixer
A ‘rug pull’ is what happened to Squid, the token that was said to be based on the immensely popular Netflix series. In fact, this kind of scam happens when a token’s promoter draws in buyers, pushing up the price of the token, and then stops the trading activity and exit with the money raised from sales. The creators then cashes out the coins in exchange for real money mostly using a coin mixer, which leaves no trace of his personal details.
$SQUID is now fully decentralised and moving fast 🚀 https://t.co/Th1iQgi1uH
— Doogle (@CryptoDoogle) November 6, 2021
The fact that the Squid Game rug pull was so widely reported on is because many in the mainstream media at first alerted their readers about the token’s existence, probably bringing more buyers in. BBC, the Independent and several European newspapers reported on the coin still (reportedly paid for by the group behind the coin according to some on social media) while known crypto sites were already pointing to the red flags of the token.
$squid crypto scam ❌ pic.twitter.com/LfT3wi33rj
— Diego Garcia (@diegogarcb) November 6, 2021
This site said one day before the rug pull that the token had all signs of a scam, even as the coin was still rising in value.
Life savings lost
The subsequent ‘rug pull’ has left many in disarray. In Shanghai, a man who prefers to only be identified by the alias Bernard (as crypto trading is illegal in certain parts of China now) admitted to CNBC that he lost his entire life savings (some $28,000) to the coin.
"Squid Game" crypto token cost one Shanghai investor his life savings of $28,000 after coin plunged to near zero https://t.co/m0m8d66byA
— CNBC (@CNBC) November 4, 2021
My rush to buy this token is for a single idea that went into my brain that ‘Squid Game’ is very, very popular now, and its token must be popular now. It’s a tragedy. I don’t know how to recover my loss.
The man said.
Yesterday still, even though it was widely reported that the coin is a scam for almost a week now, and Binance is looking for the criminals, the token was driven up another 600% for reasons unknown. Once again, do not invest, this is a known scam.
CoinMarketCap put out a warning to those investing in it, stating:
We have received multiple reports that the website and socials are no longer functional & users are not able to sell this token in Pancakeswap. There is growing evidence that this project has rugged. 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.
Until the cryptosphere finds a solution for this kind of criminal behavior which has become all too popular in the market, calls for regulation will sound ever louder.