Shipkoin Sukka - What Happened?

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"I am barely a person of note, but i have a blue tick on twitter. And so yet, i get people trying to pitch me ship coins all the time," he says. "Someone is lying to you. You shouldn't trust what they say." The shitkoin suka was created in late May and traded for about $1 per coin before being taken down last week.

When the Guardian’s UK technology editor Alex Hern was contacted on Twitter to ask if he was involved in a new cryptocurrency called Tsuka, he assumed they just wanted him to buy it. He ignored the messages. But soon after Alex realised that, without knowing it, he was already involved. What happened next reveals a lot about the strange world of ‘shitcoins’ – cryptocurrencies with no reason for existence beyond buying low and selling high. Madeleine Finlay speaks to Alex Hern about his shitcoin saga, and how the lines can get blurred between a gamble and a scam. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod