By Solomon Odunayo
According to a community site created to fight XRP fraud, xrplorer, holders have so far lost relatively 8.5 million XRP digital tokens to giveaway scams and fake airdrops since 2019.
As per the information made available by the xrplorer, funds from these XRP scams were sent to major exchanges by the scammers. Binance exchange is reportedly used often as the destination of the funds in 2019 and 2020.
Xrplorer shared this, “According to our data, XRP accounts associated with these “giveaway” scams are in possession of at least ~5.9M XRP with many funds laundered every day through exchanges and swap services.”
Recall that Ripple, the US-based cross-border payment giant, has filed a lawsuit against YouTube, the world’s largest video content sharing platform, for allowing scammers to freely use its platform to impersonate the company and its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, which resulted in deceiving unsuspecting XRP holders with fake giveaways and airdrops.
Since this lawsuit became public, the XRP community and cryptocurrency enthusiasts have been praising Ripple for the vital and timely move, as many have fallen victim, owing to the failure of YouTube in identifying and restraining fake contents and personalities.
The Purpose of Establishing xrplorer
Xrplorer is a new source of information, however, the reliability of its data is yet to be established. But it has so far successfully indicated the extent of the present issue regarding fake XRP giveaways and dubious airdrops.
Xrplorer is originally named XRP Forensics, and purposely set up as a community initiative to help prevent and combat fraudulent activity on the XRP ledger.
“There is a threat to XRP investors, disguised as well-meaning giveaways and airdrops, social media handles disguised as valued community members and celebrities, and websites disguised as official communication channels. We are building tools to help people who have been victims and to prevent others from becoming so. Time is of the essence. From the time a victim realizes they have been defrauded to when they trace their funds and to when they get in touch with an exchange, the money is often long gone.”