In the Netflix hit series “Squid Game,” characters gamble with their lives. The price of playing the game in the real world may not be as steep as a life, but for many people who piled their money into Squid, a once red-hot cryptocurrency named after the show, the financial loss has still been significant, the Washington Post reported. On early Monday morning, the value of a Squid coin collapsed from a high of just over $2,860 to effectively zero as cryptocurrency traders watched the token’s unknown creators clean out some $3.3 million in funds, according to digital records. The maneuver, known as a “rug pull” in cryptocurrency circles, occurs when a token’s creators abandon the project by exchanging many virtual coins for real-world cash. They quickly drain liquidity from the product, effectively driving the coin’s value to zero and leaving other investors holding the bag in an apparent scam. “Squid Game Dev does not want to continue running the project,” the developers wrote on their Telegram channel Monday, saying they were “depressed” by scammers and “overwhelmed with stress.” Launched late last month, the new cryptocurrency skyrocketed in value as investors rushed to buy tokens hyped by promotions on multiple social media platforms. The project’s Twitter account — since restricted by the social network because of “unusual activity” — amassed more than 57,000 followers, and its Telegram channel had more than 71,000 subscribers.
