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In what can only be described as a digital 'Ocean's Eleven' minus the charm and George Clooney, Ripple's co-founder and executive chairman and co-founder Chris Larsen has found himself lighter by a cool $112 million. But don't worry, it was just his personal stash, not Ripple's.
On-chain detective ZachXBT reported that the addresses in question were relieved of 213 million XRP, equating to about $112.5 million. The stolen XRP was allegedly laundered through a variety of exchanges, including but not limited to MEXC, Gate, Binance, and Kraken.
Larsen took to Twitter/X to confirm this little hiccup, stating, “Yesterday, there was unauthorized access to a few of my personal XRP accounts (not Ripple) – we were quickly able to catch the problem and notify exchanges to freeze the affected addresses. Law enforcement is already involved.”
Quick to the scene, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse reassured the masses that no Ripple-managed wallets were compromised. Phew, right?
It appears @Ripple was hacked for ~213M XRP ($112.5M)
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 31, 2024
Source address
rJNLz3A1qPKfWCtJLPhmMZAfBkutC2Qojm
So far the stolen funds have been laundered through MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, etc pic.twitter.com/HKGYsLQeMv
"This is an isolated incident, and Ripple wallets are secure / were never compromised. We’ve confirmed nearly all the affected funds were converted out of XRP. We’re working with law enforcement and have been advised that a significant portion of funds have been frozen, and are pursuing the remainder aggressively," Larsen wrote on Twitter.
The speculation is rife that Larsen’s private keys were compromised, but the exact hows and whys are not known. ZachXBT, never one to shy away from a bit of snark, initially suggested that Ripple itself was under attack. After Larsen's clarification, he continued to blur the lines between Larsen's personal and Ripple's corporate accounts with a not-so-subtle “Totally completely separate entities … wink wink.”
Blockcast
This little incident comes after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had previously accused Larsen and Garlinghouse of engaging in unregistered personal token sales, alongside Ripple's corporate sales. All those charges were dropped in 2023, so no harm, no foul, right?
In response to the hacking news, XRP's price took a nosedive, dropping by over 5%, from $0.53 to a more humble $0.49. At the time of writing, it's hovering around $0.50.
