The price of XRP recently squeezed after a fake exchange traded fund (ETF) filing by BlackRock began circulating online. This came hot on the heels of an artificial intelligence (AI) generated video scam featuring Ripple’s CEO.
The Fake XRP Filing of BlackRock
The crypto community was in a frenzy after a Blackrock filing for an XRP ETF surfaced on the Delaware Divisions of Corporations website last Monday. The paperwork reflected an info similar to the previous filings of the asset management firm for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) ETFs.
However, it didn’t take long before a spokesperson for BlackRock denied submitting such an application. The representative added that the company is not planning to launch a spot XRP ETF anytime soon.
XRP Surges to 12%
The alleged BlackRock filing was immediately shared on X (formerly Twitter), and it didn’t take long before more people began confirming the existence of the document. As a result, the price of XRP popped by around 12% or $0.74 in major crypto exchanges yesterday at around 9:00 PM UTC time. But as soon as it was exposed as sham, the coin tanked as quickly as it rose, settling at $0.65 by 11:00 PM UTC.
As of this writing at 4:30 AM UTC, XRP is trading at $0.66, still showing a 1% gain on the 24-hour timeframe. The daily chart displayed the price between a $0.64 low and a $0.74 high. The volume of transactions was significantly up by 233.81% following the XRP ETF fiasco.
Ripple CEO Bogus Video
Before all these, there was a phony video of Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse—which also hijacked my YouTube video ads—that was going around. The promotional campaign featured the Ripple supremo talking about giving away to the community.
The promise comes with a condition though: Sending a certain wallet address at least 1,000 XRP comes with a reward doubling the amount in return.
Well, it all sounds too good to be true until it was outed as an AI-made video. The presentation eerily copied Garlinghouse’s voice and even body movements, which can easily fool the untrained eye. Eagle-eyed viewers were quick to notice some inconsistencies with the mouth movements compared to the audio.
We don’t know the extent of the scam yet, especially if it indeed successfully lured victims. As of press time, we are still seeing it on YouTube, and it’s even tagged as “sponsored” content by the video-sharing platform under a user named Brad with the handle @Brad-US.
Further examination reveals that the pseudonymous Brad already has 41.7K subscribers and the single video on the channel already had 98K views.
End Notes
The series of events shown here should, once again, serve as a reminder that the cryptospace is rife with both opportunities and bad actors looking to take away your money. The only key to ensuring that you don’t fall prey to the latter is by exercising due diligence at all times when deciding about your investments.
