Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.
David Schwartz, the chief technical officer (CTO) of American blockchain payments company Ripple Labs Inc has come out to label a fake website trying to form an affiliation with the XRP coin. Taking to his Twitter account, Schwartz cautioned that the website called "holdxrp . com" is a scam site, a call for users to be careful.
CAUTION: holdxrp . com is a scam site.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) July 21, 2023
While not recommended, a visit to the site shows a Medium-like interface containing the announcement of a fake airdrop featuring a blog post from Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple Labs Inc. Surprisingly, the post has received a phony 5,326 claps, a figure that is possibly engineered to give the website and the announcement some legitimacy.
The announcement contains a number of phishing links which, when clicked, might result in unforeseen exploitation of the user's funds. The fraud in creating the site was also manifested with the impersonation of top figures in the industry like Ben Armstrong (BitBoy Crypto), Carl from the Moon and Crypto Rover, among others, to comment on the post.
XRP is new target
Since the XRP ruling in which Judge Analisa Torres declared that secondary sales of the cryptocurrency are not securities, there have been many scams linked to the token and Ripple as a whole. With the social interest in the token now at its peak, many bad actors are trying to get a slice of the cake by creating phony airdrops and giveaways just to lure unsuspecting community members.
While David Schwartz has been warning of related scams for some time now, the top genuine XRP-linked Twitter accounts have supported his calls to boycott many websites.
It is worth noting that bad actors exist in crypto, the reason why many platforms have been hacked to date, and XRP community members need to know that announcements that do not come from verified Ripple platforms are most likely fake and should be ignored.
Dan Burgin
Yuri Molchan
Denys Serhiichuk
