The cryptocurrency XRP (Ripple) saw a major decline on Monday, 13th November, dropping to $0.65 from a whopping $0.72 it hit last week.
XRP price took off and hit the top gainers charts last week, hovering around $0.72, following a false XRP Trust filing on the Delaware list of corporations website. Other factors included groundbreaking partnerships and the team’s success with some legal cases.
However, whales weren’t patient enough to grab more gains, instead they leveraged the buzz to take profits. We are talking about profits worth $65 million, taken by institutional investors.
A major reason for this price descent was the refutal of the hoax concerning an alleged iShares XRP ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) filing by BlackRock.
When the sham information began circulating, many XRP community members mistook it as true until it was initially debunked by Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas and other prominent figures.
Balchunas dispelled the claims in a tweet, pointing out that the Delaware filing looked fake. XRP quickly shed its bulk of gains as investors processed the debunked news.
“This is false! Confirmed by BlackRock by me. Some whacko must have added using BlackRock executive name etc. Cmon man,” said Balchunas on X. “Some ppl questioning whether BlackRock actually confirmed to me this is false. They did. A spokesperson confirmed. If that’s not enough and you are still raging, they pls seek medical help.”
Another interesting twist to the XRP Trust filing was the revelation that just about anyone could “spoof” an XRP Trust, according to Pro-XRP attorney Jeremy Hogan.
Hogan noted that although it’s a real filing, it is fraudulent and can be created with only $500.
“You only need to file two documents (attached), pay the money, and you get a “placeholder” on the state website,” the attorney said on X.
The two documents needed, according to images attached to his tweet, include the State of Delaware Certificate of Trust and the State of Delaware – Division of Corporations documents. Then once $500 is paid, the says filing gets “a ‘placeholder’ on the state website, according to Hogan.
As a conjecture, the attorney added that the criminal behind the filing most probably wanted to recreate what happened with Blackrock’s ETH Trust filing. “criminal saw what happened with the ETH trust filing, files the XRP trust “filing,” buys $100k xrp on leverage, sells at 74 cents, and pockets 2-3 million dollars.” Hogan is also looking at another possible scenario that “Blackrock has clients who want exposure to XRP and have begun the process.”
Despite Bloomberg’s Eric Balchuna’s saying a BlackRock representative had debunked that the asset manager filed the XRP ETF, the filing hasn’t been taken off the Delaware Corp. Commission website.
As a result, many investors are still skeptical, reasoning that maybe BlackRock might have filed the XRP Trust. WhaleWire, crypto whale and news source, believes there’s a bias against XRP and that the filing is most likely real and legitimate.
“It’s been over 6 hours, and the iShares $XRP Trust filing is still actively listed on the ICIS Delaware website. If it was fake, it would’ve been delisted by now,” said WhaleWire on X. To emphasize the bias, WhaleWire also said, “The news is likely real. Just look how feral they become when the narrative shifts away from Bitcoin and to Ripple.
BlackRock had earlier filed for a spot Ether ETF on 9th November. It now awaits SEC approval together with its spot Bitcoin ETF filed back in June.