Squid Game token (SQUID) rug pull

Launched in October 2021 on BNB Smart Chain (BSC) — the token sale/availability opened October 20 and live trading followed on PancakeSwap — SQUID posed as the token of an upcoming play-to-earn game based on Netflix's *Squid Game*, with no actual affiliation. The project's website falsely claimed partnerships with Netflix, Microsoft and CoinGecko (CoinGecko publicly denied any tie), the whitepaper was riddled with spelling errors, and the site was only weeks old. The price surged tens of thousands of percent (TRM: over 40,000%) to a quoted peak of ~$2,861, while the smart contract's 'anti-dump' mechanism effectively allowed only the creators to sell — ordinary holders could not exit.

On November 1, 2021 the developers cashed out and drained liquidity; the token collapsed ~99.99% to a fraction of a cent within minutes and the website and social accounts vanished. Contemporaneous reporting put the amount the developers made off with at ~$3.3–3.38M. TRM Labs' January 2023 on-chain analysis separately linked the SQUID crew to two additional rug pulls and estimated at least 35,025 BNB (~$19.3M) obtained across all three schemes combined — a figure for the wider crew, NOT SQUID alone; a journalist investigation (below) put aggregate SQUID victim losses at ~$16M. Proceeds were swapped to BNB and pushed through Tornado Cash (55 deposits on November 1 alone into a single address), then bridged to Ethereum, where at least 2,693 ETH (~$11.1M) reached a VASP linked to the scammers.

Binance opened an investigation in November 2021, publicly called SQUID a scam, said it would provide its findings to law enforcement, and noted the Tornado Cash trail (exploring blacklisting addresses tied to the developers). A journalist investigation (Janhoi McGregor's 'Squid Scam' podcast, reported January 2023) traced records to a technology company registered in Guangdong province, China in April 2021 and a Hong Kong office address, cited ~$16M in aggregate victim losses, and handed its findings to police — but as of July 2026 no arrest, indictment, or regulatory action is on record and the perpetrators remain publicly unidentified. Copycat SQUID tokens continue to appear, including a Base-chain token that dropped ~99% within a day of *Squid Game* Season 2's late-December 2024 release.

Sources: [TRM Labs — On the Trail of the Squid Game Scammers](https://www.trmlabs.com/post/on-the-trail-of-the-squid-game-scammers), [CoinDesk — Squid Game Token Crashes](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/11/01/squid-game-token-crashes-developers-say-theyve-left-the-project), [CoinDesk — Binance Is Investigating Squid Game Token](https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/11/03/binance-is-investigating-squid-game-token-considers-it-a-scam-report), [Finbold — Squid Game crypto token scammer tracked down](https://finbold.com/just-in-squid-game-crypto-token-scammer-tracked-down/), [Wikipedia — 2021 Squid Game cryptocurrency scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Squid_Game_cryptocurrency_scam)

**Official action:** None on record. Binance opened an internal investigation (Nov 2021), publicly called SQUID a scam, said it would provide findings to law enforcement, and noted the Tornado Cash trail; a journalist investigation's findings were passed to police — but no arrests, charges, or regulatory action as of July 2026; perpetrators remain publicly unidentified.