Crypto scams have been on the rise lately with users and web3 security platforms exposing pump and dump schemes, user account hacks and fake tokens almost everyday. Latest to the ‘exposed list’, is the fake Philippines XRP wallet pretending to be the US Treasury.
Earlier today, reports of a XRP wallet linked to the US Treasury emerged. Most social media influencers, especially on X, went ahead to spread the news while others raised concerns about the credibility of the wallet.
With the matter gaining traction worldwide, on-chain analytics on XRPSCAN have confirmed otherwise, revealing that the wallet is Philippine-based. This confirmed that the XRP wallet issuing Bank of America and JP Morgan tokens is fraudulent. As indicated by XRPSCAN, the wallet address identified as “rfHhX6hA54LBqA3j7r7EnCs6qyaRK2Lyfq” is even fully KYC verified.
The Number of Crypto Scams Is On The Rise
Besides the recent incident, the number of social-media-induced crypto scams is on the rise, with the crypto space experiencing various scams recently. One major type of scam that has become so rampant is the impersonation or hacking of prolific accounts to promote fake tokens or rug pull investors.
According to a Scam Sniffer, fraudsters impersonation of X accounts rose by 87% in December 2024. These fraudsters now steal legitimate company accounts and create false profiles or fake websites to deceive users.
Big crypto platforms including Litecoin and Foresight Ventures are the recent victims. Scammers took control of their X accounts to push fraudulent tokens. On Jan. 11, 2025 for instance, Litecoin discovered their official X account had been hacked to promote a fake Solana token.
In another incident hackers gained control over the Foresight Ventures account to advertise the MingAI token they misrepresented as an artificial intelligence crypto assistant. Foresight Ventures, however, confirmed that they regained control of their account and took further security measures.
Zach Rynes Slams XRP Community for the Fake XRP Wallet
Zach Rynes, a Chainlink coordinator took to social media to slam influencers and XRP users that promoted the fake US Treasury XRP wallet. Zach’s post read; “Latest example of the rampant misinformation problem in the $XRP community. This time we have fake KYC’d accounts from the Philippines pretending to be the US treasury and issuing fake Bank of America, JP Morgan, and BlackRock tokens on the XRPL.”
He further wondered how people fall for such stuff citing so many red flags of the XRP wallet. He wrote, “[it} took me only a minute to find a confirmation by the KYC provider saying it’s fake.” Zach pointed out that too much optimism is fueling the misinformation in the XRP community as members ‘want it to be true too much.’
While KYC verification can help to prevent such incidents, the crypto space needs better ways of curbing the recent rise in social-media-fueled crypto scams. Being more vigilant and doing extensive research before investing in any upcoming crypto project will help users avoid being victims.
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