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Binance, one of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, said on Thursday it has dedicated a team of investigators to track down the SQUID cryptocurrency scammers.

SQUID token which is inspired by the Korean-language Netflix series “Squid Game” surged from $0.01 to almost $3,000 before plummeting to $0 by Monday. The crypto’s website and social media accounts went offline instantly after that, suggesting that a potential “rug pull” where creators ran away with the money.

The Binance investigators will be "deploying blockchain analytics to identify the bad actors", a spokesperson told Business Insider. Binance will also provide its findings to law enforcement in the relevant jurisdictions.

"Our security team has launched an investigation - as a gesture of goodwill," a Binance spokesperson told Insider in an emailed response.

SQUID creators flee with $3 million

At what seems like a scam, SQUID creators fled with over $3 million. Victims included a trader who invested his whole life savings of $28,000 in the cryptocurrency.

"The truth is, SQUID won't be the first or last DeFi scam," Binance CEO and co-founder Changpeng Zhao - known more widely as CZ - said in a blog Thursday.

CZ urged people to arm themselves with knowledge about crypto. He noted that over the past year, more first-time investors than ever had entered the market.

"We're entering a period of peak speculation-people are looking for the next get-rich-quick scheme, or 100X opportunity. The truth is, those 100X don't come along often. And when they do, they usually come with a ton of risk, sometimes so much so that the lines get blurred between investing and gambling," CZ said.