A hacker stole approximately 213 million XRP (about $112.5 million) on Tuesday from an executive at Ripple Labs, the company behind the XRP token. The funds were siphoned out of one wallet and laundered through a number of trading platforms, including MEXC, Binance, Kraken and OKX, according to a tweet from blockchain analyst ZachXBT.
Chris Larsen, co-founder and executive chairman of Ripple, confirmed the hack on X, adding that the funds were stolen “not [from] Ripple” but from his personal accounts.
“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,” wrote Larsen on Jan. 31.
The hack has brought the total losses of crypto assets in January up to $189 million, according to Web3 security firm CertiK. The price of XRP briefly dipped on the news but recovered. XRP is down about 3% from yesterday to $0.5093, according to CoinMarketCap.
Ripple has spent almost two years in a legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that the sale of XRP token amounted to the offering of unregistered securities. In June 2023, a federal judge ruled that the sale of XRP on exchanges and other platforms didn’t count as investment contracts, a partial legal victory.
Earlier this month, Ripple offered to buy back $285 million in shares from early investors and employees in a deal that valued the company at $11.3 billion.
Read more: Crypto Hackers Stole $1.7 Billion in 2023, Down 54% YOY, As DeFi Security Improves: Report
UPDATE Jan. 31 11:45 a.m.: Added sourcing and detail to the change in XRP price in paragraph four.
