Ripple was not hacked for $112M XRP — but its co-founder was

ZachXBT flagged the outflows, which took place on Tuesday

share

An on-chain detective has flagged odd XRP outflows worth roughly $112 million from addresses linked to Ripple Labs.

ZachXBT, in a post on X Wednesday, said that Ripple seemed to have been hacked for 213 million XRP.

However, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen responded that his Ripple accounts had been compromised, not Ripple itself.

Larsen said there had been “unauthorized access to a few of my personal XRP accounts.”

“We were quickly able to catch the problem and notify exchanges to freeze the affected addresses. Law enforcement is already involved,” he added.

Loading Tweet..

The stolen funds, ZachXBT found, were laundered through crypto exchanges including Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, and MEXC.

Loading Tweet..

He highlighted roughly 8 addresses tied to the alleged theft. 

Read more: Security review competition will offer a bounty of $1.2M

The timestamps for the transactions stand out, however, as they took place on Tuesday ranging from early on in the day to late Tuesday night. Ripple Labs or Larsen had not publicly disclosed the attack until ZachXBT’s posts on social media.

“The sheer number of [transactions] to exchanges in a short time span should tell you enough,” ZachXBT said in a follow up post. “Ripple team is not going to use a small instant exchange like FixedFloat in size.”

Following the post on X, XRP fell over 5%. It has since bounced back as of publication.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Pack your bags, anon — we’re heading west! Join us in the beautiful Salt Lake City for the third installment of Permissionless. Come for the alpha, stay for the fresh air. Permissionless III promises unforgettable panels, killer networking opportunities, and mountains […]

recent research

Screen Shot 2024-05-16 at 14.53.45.png

Research

Loss-versus-rebalancing (LVR) is arguably Ethereum DeFi’s biggest problem, and thus reducing LVR is fundamental to the success of Ethereum. This report dives into the world of LVR. We uncover its importance for AMM designers, discuss the two major mechanism design categories and various projects developing solutions, and offer a higher level perspective on the importance of AMMs in general.

article-image

Yesterday saw Congress’ upper chamber side with the House on a measure aimed at overturning SAB 121

article-image

Oklahoma’s new crypto bill will go into effect in November of this year

article-image

The deposits hit a $20 million cap in just 45 minutes

article-image

Twelve Democratic Senators voted in favor to pass the resolution Thursday

article-image

Pump.fun is “aware” that bonding curve contracts on Pump.fun were exploited, and has since paused trading

article-image

Some investment pros are mulling crypto allocations between 1% and 10% and seeking ex-BTC exposure for interested clients