Scammers generated approximately 11.5 million X posts targeting the XRP community with fake rewards and airdrop promises over the past 30 days, according to an analysis of X API data by XRP Ledger validator Vet.
Vet, who contributes to the XRP Ledger Foundation and operates a validator included on the XRPL Foundation’s default Unique Node List, disclosed the finding after analyzing activity on X. His validator remains listed among the network’s trusted validators.
“Doing some X analytics with their API,” Vet said. “In the last 30 days about 11.5 million (!!) posts were made targeting specifically the XRP community to scam them with reward and airdrop promises.”
If spread evenly across 30 days, that figure would equal roughly 383,000 posts per day, nearly 16,000 per hour, or about 266 every minute, based on our calculation.
XRP Reward and Airdrop Scams Continue to Flood Social Media
The finding adds scale to a problem XRP holders have been confronting throughout 2026.
Fake airdrop campaigns typically promise free XRP, rewards or token allocations and then direct users toward phishing websites or malicious wallet requests.
Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz warned in May about a “huge escalation” in fake XRP airdrop and giveaway scams, urging users to treat unsolicited reward offers with extreme caution.
Xaman founder Wietse Wind has also warned of fake wallet applications and nonexistent XRP airdrops, while scammers have increasingly relied on cloned accounts, malicious domains and impersonation.
Some attacks have led directly to losses. In June, an XRP holder lost 14,646 XRP in a fake reward-related payment request after approving a transaction disguised as a verification message.
Verified Accounts Can Also Be Compromised
The threat is not limited to newly created spam profiles.
In October, Ireland’s national police X account was compromised and repurposed to promote a fraudulent XRP/Xaman airdrop. The verified account had nearly 300,000 followers, giving the fake promotion substantially greater reach and apparent legitimacy.
Vet noted the same issue in his follow-up discussion, saying large accounts can be sold or compromised and then used by scammers to expand their reach.
This makes follower count or verification status alone insufficient for establishing whether an XRP reward offer is legitimate.
Vet Says the Problem Extends Beyond XRP
Although the 11.5 million-post estimate specifically examined XRP-targeted scams, Vet cautioned against interpreting the activity as something unique to the XRP ecosystem.
In a follow-up response, he said similar scam comments appear around Ethereum and Solana discussions as well, describing the problem as one affecting the broader crypto industry.
That distinction is important because the latest data does not establish that XRP is targeted more frequently than every competing crypto community.
It does, however, illustrate the enormous volume of fraudulent content surrounding a large and highly active holder base.
The Crypto Basic has also recently covered questions around bot-like activity and repetitive FUD targeting XRP discussions, although negative commentary and financial scams represent separate issues.
Vet did not publish the underlying X API query parameters or full dataset alongside the 11.5 million figure, so the total remains his reported analysis rather than an independently reproducible X platform statistic.
For XRP holders, the practical warning remains unchanged: legitimate projects do not require users to send XRP first to receive more XRP, disclose private keys, or approve unexplained wallet transactions to claim an airdrop.