Key takeaways:
- The $112 million hack of Ripple’s co-founder’s personal wallet resulted in the freezing of $4.2 million worth of XRP by Binance.
- In response to Teng’s tweet, the XRP Ledger Foundation’s head of analytics and compliance stated that the organization was the one that looked into the matter initially.
The $112 million hack of Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen’s personal wallet on January 31 resulted in the freezing of $4.2 million worth of XRP by cryptocurrency exchange Binance, making it the biggest hack of 2024 thus far.
Binance CEO Richard Teng commended on-chain sleuth ZachXBT and the Ripple team for their cooperation and support in a post on social media platform X, revealing that the exchange has frozen the exploiter’s address.
In response to Teng’s tweet, Thomas Silkjaer, the XRP Ledger Foundation’s head of analytics and compliance, stated that the organization was the one that looked into the matter initially.
Early on, there was talk that Ripple had been compromised; according to some reports, the XRP cryptocurrency itself had been compromised. Larsen subsequently disclosed, though, that Ripple itself had not been compromised—rather, it was his personal accounts.
The exploit’s hacker did not conceal their identity using decentralized exchanges or cryptocurrency mixer services. Most exploiters have ceased using centralized exchanges as of late in order to minimize the risk of having their cash frozen.
Later, ZachXBT disclosed that uncertainty regarding the breach resulted from the Ripple attribution for the impacted account being identified as Ripple itself in XRP block explorers XRPScan and Bithomp.
Co-founder of Ripple Larsen disclosed that 213 million XRP had been taken and that some of his personal XRP accounts had been hijacked. Larsen added that Ripple has notified law authorities and is in discussions with cryptocurrency exchanges to freeze the exploiter address. When cryptocurrency analyst ZachXBT first broke the report, it was initially believed that the company had been hacked. As stated by Larsen:
“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.”
ZachXBT claims that after obtaining 213 million XRP, or roughly $112.5 million, the exploiters tried to launder the XRP through a minimum of six exchanges: MEXC, Gate.io, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, and HitBTC.
ZachXBT reports that the breach generated 213 million XRP, or roughly $112.5 million, at the time of the incident. The Ripple chairman did not confirm the amounts.
However, law enforcement is involved and has frozen accounts tied to the breach, as Larsen’s X post implies. Currently, it’s uncertain if the money is still under exchange custody.
While some of the stolen assets have been frozen by Binance, OKX and Kraken, two other cryptocurrency exchanges, have not yet disclosed whether they have located or blocked any funds linked to the incident.
