• The fake XRP ETF filing triggered a brief surge in XRP’s value before clarification from BlackRock.
• Questions arise about the verification process for filing a Trust under a false identity, as the imposter seemingly copied details from a legitimate filing.

The Department of Justice in Delaware is reportedly looking into a fraudulent filing on Monday that falsely indicated BlackRock (BLK) was preparing to launch a spot XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF). The deceptive filing, still visible on the Delaware Department of State’s Division of Corporations website as of 2:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, closely mimics BlackRock’s authentic documentation for its iShares Ethereum Trust product filed last week.

The fake XRP filing briefly boosted the token’s value by over 10%, but a BlackRock spokesperson later clarified that the company had no intentions of launching such a fund.

A spokesperson from the Delaware Department of State informed on Tuesday that the issue has been forwarded to the Delaware Department of Justice. The spokesperson stated, “Our only comment is that this matter has been referred to the Delaware Department of Justice.”

Concerns have emerged regarding the ease of filing for a Trust under a false identity and the verification process associated with it. According to information on the Delaware website, there are seven steps involved in establishing a new business entity, all of which can seemingly be completed by filling out interactive PDF forms on the website.

A crucial requirement is obtaining a registered agent in the State of Delaware, who can be either a resident or a business entity legally permitted to operate in the state. However, it appears that if the name and address are the only prerequisites, they could be easily replicated from another filing. In this instance, the imposter seemingly did little more than copy/paste the registered agent, Daniel Schwieger, a managing director at BlackRock according to his LinkedIn profile, from the legitimate filing.

Analyst’s Take and XRP Price Action

Bloomberg’s senior ETF strategist James Seyffart confirmed the same and stated how the XRP maxis have been gunning him down and that the ETF news was actually real.

Commenting on the attacks from XRP army on X (formerly Twitter), Seyffart said:

I know all about the XRP army on here. Tend to try to stay off their radar but man, they are doing reputational damage to that community. Some of the things they were tweeting yesterday can only be described as pathetic.

Amid the broader market sell-off, the XRP price has also come under pressure. At press time, XRP is trading 5.3% down at a price of $0.63 with a market cap of $33.7 billion.

The 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) chart reinforces this perspective. Presently, the RSI is at 64.29, indicating that XRP has transitioned from an overbought condition to neutral territories. With the market no longer in an overheated state, strategic whales may consider re-entering the market at any given moment.

Should this occur, the bulls will encounter the initial resistance barrier at $0.68. A successful breach of this level could pave the way for a bold upward move toward $0.82.

As of November 5, data from on-chain tracker Santiment reveals that wallets classified as whales (holding 1 million to 100 million XRP) collectively possessed 9 billion XRP.

Notably, these wallets initiated a selling trend when the XRP price reached $0.72 on November 6. Following a week-long selling spree, their total holdings have decreased to 8.92 billion as of Monday, November 13. This suggests that corporate investors in XRP have swiftly liquidated 90 million coins since the price surpassed $0.72 on November 6.