TL;DR

• Scammers are exploiting excitement around Shiba Inu’s TREAT token launch, scheduled for January 14, 2025.
• Fraudsters also target the SHIB community with fake giveaways, phishing emails, and forged social media accounts. Users should protect their information and report suspicious activities.

‘Stay Safe, SHIBARMY!’

Wrongdoers often target the vast Shiba Inu (SHIB) community, which consists of millions of investors, proponents, and developers. They use different methods to embezzle unsuspecting victims, often conning them with fake offers about assets part of the meme coin’s ecosystem.

The most recent scheme includes TREAT, a reward token that provides incentives for users engaging with Shiba Inu’s protocols, including the layer-2 scaling solution Shibarium. The team recently announced that its official launch will be on January 14.

While the development sparked huge enthusiasm across the community, Shibarium Trustwatch (an X account that aims to provide security) warned users to remain extra careful until that date. 

The team claimed that scammers have used the ongoing excitement as an opportunity to offer fake TREAT services to people, alerting users to stay away from such dubious individuals. 

“They are now using SHIB socials linked to their FAKE TREAT. Please don’t be misled by these predatory scammers. They can be called vultures, circling and looking for their next feed. We ask with heaven on our side, please do not fall for these scams.

Be clear: the TREAT launch is scheduled for the 14th of January 2025, not before. If you are unsure about anything at any time, check with us first. Stay safe, SHIBARMY,” the warning reads.

Previous Alerts

Around Christmas, Shibarium Trustwatch warned people to stay vigilant for several common crypto scams that may result in crucial losses. Some examples are fake giveaways, which offer “free” tokens, merchandise, or NFTs, and phishing emails.

The team claimed fraudsters send emails to victims, pretending to be from official SHIB-related projects, thus trying to steal their login credentials. 

Other things the community should watch out for include fake social media accounts, Ponzi schemes, forgery charity appeals, and more.

“Providing personal information or falling for these scams doesn’t just put you at risk – it may lead to your data being sold on the dark web, where hackers can use it for identity theft or other malicious activities. Scammers exploit trust, kindness, and generosity, especially during the holiday season, so we must stay vigilant,” the team said at the time.

Bitcoin maintained its Friday and weekend gains and even jumped to a multi-week peak of almost $100,000 before it was stopped once again and pushed south by nearly a grand.

Most altcoins are quite sluggish on a daily scale as well, with ETH remaining above $3,600 and SOL standing above $210.

BTC Came Close to $100K

The beginning of the previous business week was anything but positive for BTC as the asset slumped to a monthly low of $91,300. Its volatile rollercoaster continued in the following days with several fluctuations worth thousands of dollars.

It pumped to over $96,000 on New Year’s Eve but was quickly pushed south to under $93,000. The bulls finally stepped up for good at that point and pushed it to over $97,000 by January 2. Following another brief retracement by about a grand, BTC shot up to $99,000 on Friday amid the growing ETF inflows.

Although the trading volumes during the weekend declined, BTC maintained its run and remained at relatively the same position. Monday began on a more favorable note, with a surge to a two-week peak of $99,800 (on Bitstamp), where it faced enhanced resistance.

As of now, bitcoin stands at around $99,000 after a minor retracement, with its market cap above $1.960 trillion and its dominance over the alts at 53.4% on CG.

AVAX on the Rise

Most larger-cap alts have failed to produce any big moves in either direction. ETH, BNB, SUI, and LINK have charted minor gains, while XRp, SOL, DOGE, and ADA are with insignificant losses.

Avalanche is the top performer from the larger-cap alts. AVAX has risen by almost 5% and now sits around $44. The other notable gainers include RNDR, FET, and FIL, with increases of around 6-7%.

The total crypto market cap has added around $30 billion overnight and is up to $3.680 trillion on CG.

TL:DR;

• XRP was hit hard during the market-wide correction in late December but has gained a lot of traction since the start of the new year.
• A popular indicator now flashed green, suggesting a potential buy signal for Ripple’s cross-border token.

The indicator in question is the TD Sequential, which is a popular tool used to determine the market exhaustion in either direction. According to Ali Martinez, a crypto analyst with over 100,000 followers on X, it has now presented a ‘buy signal’ for XRP on the 4-hour chart.

The TD Sequential presents a buy signal on the $XRP 4-hour chart, anticipating a price rebound! pic.twitter.com/QitMbED2DA

— Ali (@ali_charts) January 5, 2025

Previously, the same analyst warned that XRP could drop toward $2, which might be followed by another impressive rally that could propel the asset to as high as $11.

While that eventual price target sounds a bit far-fetched now, the TD Sequential has already showcased several proper buying opportunities in the past few weeks.

During the late December broader market crash, it flashed green for BTC when its price struggled below $95,000. Although the largest cryptocurrency dipped hard a week later, it ultimately bounced off and now sits above $99,000, marking a 4.5% increase since then.

Its success is even more profound for DOGE. It presented a ‘buy signal’ on December 24, when the asset’s price dumped to $0.312. Since then, the OG meme coin has skyrocketed by more than 22% and now sits above $0.38.

It has been more modest when predicting future gains for SHIB. It flashed again on December 24 when the second-largest meme coin traded at $0.000023, but it has forecasted only a minor 3.8% increase since then, with SHIB now standing close to $0.000024.