The Squid Game phenomenon continues to take the world by storm. After its debut on September 17, 2021, the show broke records by being the most-watched content on Netflix, with 1.65 billion hours so far. Squid Game is weaved into every imaginable place in pop culture; this October, for instance, the most purchased Halloween costumes were from Squid Game. Even in the realm of finance, a new form of cryptocurrency emerged, inspired by the hit TV show.

The unknown developer merged the current hottest show with crypto, a sensation in the world of economics. Blending Squid Game and cryptocurrency proved to be a success as thousands of people immediately flocked to buy tokens of the currency, named Squid. Users began trading Squid at $0.01 per token, and as the series quickly gained traction, the price went up to $2,855 per token in less than a week. Over 40,000 people decided to invest in Squid, but like the TV show’s plot, the currency began to take a turn for the worse. 

Unlike most forms of crypto, Squid can not be converted back into regular currency, like the US dollar. About a week after Squid was created, investors hit an extreme and irreversible obstacle: the value of the currency had plummeted to nothing, and they could not figure out why. The anonymous creators had formulated a scam where they abandoned their currency, right after thousands of users had already invested. There were red flags from the start, as numerous grammatical errors and false information on the website could have led investors to see through the fraud, but that did not seem to deter people from purchasing Squid. The organizers are expected to have escaped from their website unscathed with a whopping $3.4 million, collected in merely a week. 

One contentious facet of crypto is the lack of regulation. This allows scammers and criminals to more easily engage in illegal activities, especially those regarding money, because there is no means of tracking their actions. This incident with Squid illustrates how easy it is for suspects to bail on their digital currency and run away with large sums of money, stolen from ordinary people. Anyone can easily be taken advantage of in this new age of crypto. Regulation will continue to be a heavily debated issue, as data from 2021 alone estimates that at least $100 million was stolen in crypto scams, without any means to track down the culprits. 

Not all crypto is bad, but it surely makes sense why crypto is constantly perceived to be an unreliable and risky way to invest money. Squid proved how inexperienced investors can lose their money in the blink of an eye. New investors are either immediately deterred from the negative reputation of cryptocurrency, or enter into the complicated world of digital currency without fully understanding all of the dangers. Though there have been successful forms of crypto like Bitcoin, it is clear that the currency has an uphill battle with public distrust.