Heads up: A fraudulent press release dropped on Christmas Eve claiming to be from Circle, complete with the company's branding and fake executive quotes about tokenized gold and silver trading features. The catch? It's completely fabricated. Circle's official team has confirmed the announcement is not legitimate and was not authorized by the company.

This is a classic bait-and-switch move—scammers banking on holiday chaos and lower vigilance to push fake narratives about crypto platforms offering assets that don't exist. The goal: lure unsuspecting investors into believing a major exchange is launching a new product, potentially driving traffic to phishing sites or fake trading platforms.

The incident underscores why you need to verify official announcements directly through company websites and verified social channels. Don't trust anything that just shows up in your feed, no matter how official it looks.