Online fraudsters attempt to lure investors by offering unrealistic returns on investment (ROI).
Cryptocurrency exchanges Ripple and Binance became the target of malicious actors creating fake websites and trying to scam crypto investors.
One of the examples is the website ripple.com-staking.tech. On the website, malicious actors mimicked Ripple’s official page and shared a blog post, “XRP staking set to debut January 2023 for retail users.”
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In the blog post, fake Ripple invites investors to stake their XRP with an unattainable return on investment (ROI). The malicious actors offer investors “12% to 27% of <customer> current XRP balance and additional returns for those that apply and qualify for the initial campaign.”
In the scam scheme, fraudsters attempted to urge customers to invest, claiming that only the first 10,000 accounts can receive an even higher ROI.
In an attempt to make the website more credible, fraudsters copied several of Ripple’s blog posts with the same font and layout. Moreover, impersonators even suggested customers to use hardware wallets, like Ledger or Trezor, to earn their trust and increase credibility.
It is worth noting that the website appears to have several mirror domains, including ripple.org.th or ripple.com.ve.
On top of that, other online fraudsters created imposter emails, impersonating crypto exchange Binance, which allegedly offers up to 31% ROI on XRP staking.
Several crypto community enthusiasts used Twitter to warn other investors. One user Twitter customer, dubbed RipplePandaXRP, stated:
Do NOT send your XRP to an unknown address and ALWAYS check the address to see if it is a legit site.
It is worth highlighting that Binance actually offers to stake Ripple (XRP) as part of its Binance Earn program. However, it allows customers to earn up to 1.4% per year.
