This review is an alert about the fake Ripple XRP staking program advertised by fake Binance.
What is XRP staking
There is an announcement seemingly coming from the crypto exchange Binance that is inviting people to stake their XRP with Ripple to earn 16 – 31% returns per year.
It is called Autonomous XRP Staking Trial Program and it supposedly is run by the company Ripple that has allocated 5 billion XRP for this purpose.
So for example if you have 1,000 XPR, by staking with Ripple you could get back up to 1,310 XRP in year. At least that’s what the announcement says.
But is XRP staking legitimate, can you really earn a yield this high?
XRP staking is a scam
Let’s get straight to the point, the Ripple XRP Autonomous staking program is a scam. It has nothing to do with Ripple or Binance, these companies are not advertising nor running it, they probably don’t even know about it.
Illegal clone
The fake Binance ad about XRP staking will lead you to a website that looks like the official website of Ripple. But if you look carefully at the URL, you will see it never is the official one, which is Ripple.com.
It will always be an illegal clone, like ripple.org.ph or something like that. In other words, it will be a phishing website that will try hard to make you believe that you’re on the official one.
As for the Binance announcement, it will never be issued by Binance. If you check the source, which again will vary, it will never be Binance.com. You can always ask their support for a confirmation.
No XRP staking, no yields
The XRP Ledger, which is the blockchain that XRP runs on, does not rely on proof of stake for validating transactions. This means that there is no native token staking for XRP.
Some financial platforms will offer you yield and call it XRP staking, but it will never be staking per se, your deposit will be used for lending. So it’s just mislabeled financial services.
But no legitimate platform can generate 16 – 31% yearly returns on XRP deposits, that’s just impossible.
So an offer that combines the term XRP staking with 16 – 31% yearly returns has to be a scam, there just is no other way.
How the XRP staking scam works
The Autonomous XRP Staking Trial Program is a very simple scam. The fake Ripple website was built for one purpose: to get the private key to your XRP account.
First they will ask you to verify if your XRP address is eligible for the staking program. Spoiler alert: it will always be. Then they will ask you for your private key or recovery seed.
If you give it to them, they will just empty your wallet and that will be it.
You will also have the option to authorize the transaction with your hardware wallet, Ledger or Trezor.
In that case you will just send your crypto to fraudsters and never see it again.
That’s how the XRP staking scam works, they just steal your crypto tokens from your wallet and you never get anything back.
XRP Staking review – Conclusion
The XRP staking program run by Ripple and announced by Binance is a scam. These companies have nothing in common with the program.
In fact, there is no legit staking program for XRP because the XRP Ledger does not run on proof of stake.
Also, any program offering 31% for crypto staking is very likely a total scam or a very specific Ponzi scheme.