It looks like the teams behind YouTube and Twitter don't even try to stop XRP fake 'airdrops' from being aggressively promoted on both platforms. Despite the fact that the design of this particular scam is really ingenious, analysts highlight that the malefactors are still obtaining breathtaking profits.
Is It Lucrative to Be an XRP Scammer?
XRPlorer Forensics, which addressed the concept of combating and preventing all sorts of damaging behavior with XRP tokens, has calculated the profitability of one XRP fake airdrop.
A new XRP scam promoted on YouTube is currently claiming a lot of victims - several from @binance @cryptocom @coinbase @litebiteu and @krakenfx. Please consider warning your users on withdrawal.
— xrplorer.com forensics (@xrpforensics) August 15, 2020
According to the experts' opinion, which was shared in their recent tweet, the XRP scammers have managed to lead astray numerous users of Binance, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Kraken, as well as a small Dutch-incorporated platform LiteBit.
The analysts also calculated the combined profits of scammers for one-day promotion of their fake airdrops on behalf of Ripple's CEO Brad Garlinghouse. They unveiled that scammers received 206,000 XRP in a single day.
At press time, XRP is changing hands at $0.2955 on several major spot exchanges. That being said, just a single group of fraudsters has obtained almost $60,000 a day.
No Free Lunch in This World
The researchers have also tracked down the ways the scammers have tried to shuffle the stolen funds with. Apart from Binance, they will barely use unknown platforms that have low liquidity and primitive security requirements.
Typically, all XRP scams use the same model. The fraudsters announce that Ripple Inc. will redouble every amount of XRP sent to a special address 'to support the community', 'to give back to society', 'to celebrate development milestone' etc. Like in every exit scam, the fraudsters will just take the XRP and leave.
A fake airdrop may be accompanied with broadcasts of old interviews by Ripple's CEO, blog posts, or even Change.org petitions that are allegedly initiated by Mr. Garlinghouse.
However, some XRP scams are well-designed. As previously covered by CryptoComes, the malefactors sent a couple of letters on behalf of the leading crypto media outlet team CoinDesk. The letters informed their readers about an 'XRP reallocation' launched by Ripple Inc.