310,000%

Amar Pandit , CFA , CFP

November 12, 2021 | 2 Minute Read

Are you wondering what this number written as a headline means?

I am sure you are.

I had written a post headlined “Decision and Outcome” on November 2nd. One of the key points of the post was that just because the outcome is favourable does not make a good decision. Bad decisions are bad decisions even if the outcome is good. Many investors however look at outcomes and decide to invest in something. Scamsters know this very well.

I am sure you have heard of the hit Netflix series “Squid Game”. As soon as the series came out, anonymous creators (scamsters) came out with a SQUID cryptocurrency. It was pitched as pay-to-earn currency for an upcoming online game based on Squid Game.

On October 26th, SQUID was around $0.012 and by Sunday night of that week, it peaked out at $2681 before dropping 100% to lose all of its value.

It ran up a staggering 310,000% in less than 2 weeks.

The anonymous scamsters had liquidated their holdings and disappeared.

It was very difficult to scam people previously. You had to literally do it person by person. There was a lot of hard work involved – traveling, meeting people, bullshitting, meeting more people and even more bullshitting.

Now, it’s all so easy.

You can scam people globally without even moving out of your basement. The SQUID story perfectly proves this observation or hypothesis. This is what happens when you invest based on outcomes or when you confuse entertainment with investing.