Squid Game’s cryptocurrency goes up 2300% in the first few days

If you’re a fan who wants to express your devotion to the hit Korean Netflix show Squid Game, well, there’s a cryptocurrency for that.

Squid, which was trading around 1 cent on Tuesday, caught up $ 2.34 (£ 1.70) Friday – a jump over twenty times.

Its market capitalization, or total volume on the market, is $ 184 million (£ 133 million).

The dystopian series – which tells the story of a group of people forced to play deadly games for children for money – has gone viral.

Squid is what is known as a “play-to-earn” cryptocurrency, where people buy tokens to play in online games where they can earn more tokens. These can then be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or fiat money.

In the case of Squid, many buyers will be players looking to play in a online game of the program, which starts in November.

“The more people join, the bigger the prize pool (sic),” according to the platform whitepaper, which says the developers will take 10% of the entry fee with the remaining 90% given to the winner.

“More importantly, we apparently don’t deliver deadly consequences!”

Individual rounds have costs to participate – for example, playing Round 1: Red Light, Green Light will cost a player 456 Squid -, with six rounds in total becoming more expensive as they progress.

“This cryptocurrency joins a long and growing list of digital coins and tokens that are based on random memes or cultural phenomena,” Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad told the BBC.

“Surprisingly, many of these currencies quickly capture investors’ fancy, leading to wildly inflated valuations. Naive retail investors who get involved in such speculative frenzies face the risk of substantial losses.”

Play-to-ear games have become increasingly popular during the pandemic as the rise of online games has encouraged the development of the GameFi technology industry that combines entertainment with real tools to earn money.

The metaverse should help this sector to develop further.

It’s not just cryptocurrency traders who have benefited from Squid Game’s popularity.

Netflix subscriptions saw a rebound when the show was released. According to Bloomberg, the Korean series is thought to be worth around $ 900 million to the streaming giant, after only costing $ 21.4 million.