In late December, Netflix released the second season of “Squid Game,” the most-watched series in the platform’s history. Immediately after its launch, tokens related to the dystopian horror movie flooded the cryptocurrency market.
Just one day after the series premiere, blockchain security company PeckShield warned the community about the fraudulent nature of some Squid Game-inspired tokens.
The rise of Squid Game Tokens
The Squid Game series depicts a challenging competition in which players face dire financial situations and sacrifice their lives to win a huge prize.
Following the renewed popularity of the “Squid Game” series when season 2 debuted on December 26, Tokens bearing names inspired by the series quickly appeared on many Cryptocurrency exchanges.
However, the sudden appearance of multiple Squid Game-themed tokens has raised concerns about their authenticity and the potential financial risks associated with investing in them.
On December 27, blockchain security firm PeckShield issued a warning about the integrity of various tokens, identifying them as potential scams.
“Be careful of fraudulent SquidGame Tokens being spread online. We detected a fraudulent #SquidGame Token deployed on Base just 3 hours ago, with the deployer being the largest Holder,” PeckShield said in a statement. post.
In that case, PeckShield highlighted a specific token deployed on Ethereum’s Base platform, noting that the deployer kept a large portion of the supply. Since its launch, this Token has experienced a 99% price drop.
Similar schemes on Solana showed suspicious behavior, such as identical top token holders, suggesting possible price manipulation and coordinated price pumps and dumps, often leading to carpet pulling.
Users were particularly critical of a Squid Game thread account on X that was actively promoting their Token. Observers have noted the unusual uniformity of the largest wallets holding this token, which often points to a potential scam.
“Yes, these are the biggest keepers. Yes, they look alike. No, that’s not a coincidence. Don’t get pulled under the rug,” said one community member speak.
Scams and attacks have been a constant challenge in the cryptocurrency space throughout 2024. A number of high-profile social media accounts have been hacked in the past few months to promote fraudulent tokens, an initiative that launched pulled out the rug just as defenseless traders abandoned their investments.
Overall, cryptocurrency hacks and scams cost the industry more than $2.3 billion in 2024, up 40% from 2023.
A similar experience in 2021
This is not the first time Squid Game has been implicated in a cryptocurrency token scam. After the series first launched in 2021, several Tokens were released that started with hype but ended in fraud. In a notable incident, a Token named ‘SQUID’ saw a rapid and significant price increase, exceeding 45,000%.
However, this rapid growth quickly came to an end when there were reports of investors being unable to sell their assets on decentralized exchanges like PancakeSwap, triggering warnings from the platforms. like CoinMarketCap.
This incident, often referred to as one of the biggest rug pulls, highlights the risks associated with investing in speculative cryptocurrencies, especially those with limited liquidity and transparency .