The price of the viral Squid Game cryptocurrency, which was inspired by the hit Netflix program, crashed on Monday. Reports allege that the project's founders pulled the plug on the endeavour taking millions of dollars with them. Because the crypto-sphere is unregulated nothing can be done to recompensate the losses from the multitude of investors that had bought into the project.

The scammers behind the project created a fake digital currency on the back of the hit South Korean TV series.

The Squid Game token, labelled SQUID, was sold as a play-to-earn token.

It peaked at $2,861.80 on Monday morning, however, investors were unable to sell their tokens because the developers of the cryptocurrency had set up a suspicious, "anti-dumping technology" within the algorithm of their project.

Later the price of the scam cryptocurrency crashed to $0.0007 within minutes.

What happened with the Squid Game cryptocurrency is what is commonly referred to as a rug pull.

This is when anonymous developers abandon a project and run off with the money.

After the rug pull event, the Squid Game cryptocurrency's website and social media platforms have all been taken offline.

SQUID's Telegram channel did not allow comments from outsiders and its Twitter account made it impossible for anyone to reply to posts.

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Referring to the scam token, crypto price chart website Coin Market Cap said: "We have received multiple reports that the website and socials are no longer functional and the users are not able to sell this token in Pancake Swap, a crypto trading platform.

"Please do your own due diligence and exercise extreme caution.

"This project, while clearly inspired by the Netflix show of the same name, is not affiliated with the official IP."

Speaking to 'This is Money' website Chris Ainsley, head of fraud control at Santander UK, said: "We're seeing more and more cases where fraudsters use complex cryptocurrency jargon, high pressured sales tactics and fake celebrity endorsements, along with the promise of significant rewards, to lull people into a false sense of security.

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"Now more than ever, it's so important to take the time to research where your money is going before you make a payment.

"If you don't, you risk simply never seeing it again."

The colossal increase in the price of the Squid Game cryptocurrency over the past few days was encouraged by mainstream media outlets such as the BBC, Business Insider, Fortune, and CNBC running headlines about how the cryptocurrency had soared by 83,000 percent since its inception.