David Schwartz, Ripple’s CTO Emeritus, has issued an urgent warning to the XRP community about a sharp increase in scam activity targeting XRP Ledger (XRPL) users. In a post on X to his over 700,000 followers, Schwartz highlighted a “huge escalation lately in airdrop and giveaway scams” and stressed that any such offers circulating online are almost certainly fraudulent.
The scams typically fall into two categories. Fake airdrops lure victims into connecting their crypto wallets or entering seed phrases on malicious websites in exchange for non-existent free tokens. Giveaway scams promise to return double the amount of XRP sent to a designated address, often under the guise of a company event or celebration. Schwartz reminded users that “Ripple has never actually completed such initiatives,” making any promotion of free XRP from the company or its executives a red flag.
Impersonation is another key tool for fraudsters. Schwartz emphasized that anyone claiming to be him on Instagram, Telegram, or platforms other than X and LinkedIn is a scammer. His verified profile on X is the sole authentic channel for his communications.
The alert follows a pattern of previous scams targeting the XRP ecosystem. Last year, bad actors used fake YouTube accounts to impersonate Ripple’s official channel and executives, promoting giveaways and airdrops. More recently, the company’s X account warned of fraudulent livestreams and AI-generated deepfake videos featuring CEO Brad Garlinghouse, designed to trick viewers into sending tokens. Schwartz’s warning comes at a time of heightened cyber risk across the industry. April 2026 was the most hack-heavy month in DeFi history, with $635 million lost across 28 incidents. While those breaches were not social engineering attacks, they underscore the extreme vulnerability of crypto users.
Schwartz also cautioned about a critical Windows BitLocker vulnerability that could allow hackers to bypass disk encryption, potentially exposing locally stored private keys. “Stay safe XRP fam,” he urged, directing users to official resources for protection tips.
