Ripple Chairman Chris Larsen lost 213M XRP in a hack, but has confirmed that Ripple’s wallets have not been affected.
The crypto world has witnessed another hacking incident where hackers managed to steal crypto tokens worth millions and flee away. The most surprising thing about this current incident is that this time, it was Ripple’s co-founder and executive chairman, Chris Larsen, who was the victim of a recent hacking attack.
On January 31, Larsen confirmed that his crypto account had been hacked, and the hackers managed to steal 213M XRP, worth about $112.5 million. The value is derived according to the current valuation of the XRP token at the time.
The hacking incident was first noticed by a crypto analyst named ZachXBT, who figured out that there was a large outflow in volume from an XRP-related account, and he deduced that it was the company itself that fell victim to the hack.
Larsen stated that the company could quickly decipher what was happening and notified the exchanges to freeze the affected addresses.
Larsen issued a statement: “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.”
While Larson didn’t confirm how much amount was stolen from his accounts, ZachXBT provided the answer to the question when he pointed out that the breach resulted in a net 213 million XRP tokens being wiped from the account, which were valued at $112.5 at the time of the incident.
The funds stolen from Larsen’s account were reportedly diverted, and the perpetrators behind it tried to launder the XRP through a minimum of six different exchanges.
Larsen’s recent post suggests that law enforcement is actively engaged and has frozen accounts associated with the security breach.
It is currently uncertain whether the funds are still under the control of the exchanges. Ripple has yet to respond promptly to a comment request.
Reports of the hack quickly circulated the crypto market, causing a brief dip of approximately $0.01 in the price of XRP.
However, the cryptocurrency swiftly recovered and stabilized, maintaining a nearly unchanged value nearly an hour after the initial report of the hack.
Although Ripple accounts were not implicated, suggesting that the XRP-holder funds are safe and intact, the incident could rank as one of the largest cryptocurrency-related hacks in 2024 thus far.
We are only into the second month of 2024, but the cryptocurrency world has witnessed significant hacking incidents this year.
- Gamma Strategies grappled with a $3.4 million exploit, strategically manipulating transactions within the Ethereum network.
- Radiant Capital faced a significant flash loan attack on Arbitrum, resulting in a $4.5 million loss, as attackers exploited a nuanced rounding issue.
- Socket Protocol encountered a $3.3 million breach attributable to a user input validation flaw, affecting over 200 wallets.
- Wise Lending experienced one of the initial major DeFi hacks, losing approximately $464,000 due to a vulnerability in its contract logic.
- Goledo Finance, operating on Conflux eSpace, suffered a $1.7 million security breach, prompting negotiations with the hacker.
- MailerLite experienced a security breach when hackers exploited a customer service employee using social engineering, gaining control of selected Web3 email accounts and siphoning $3.3. million.
A recent report from PeckShield revealed that $674 million in stolen crypto was recovered from hacks in 2023.
The news gave the crypto community some hope that efforts are being made to not only recover the stolen funds but also to ensure the safety and security of the stored funds by introducing new security methods and working on loopholes that would make it very difficult for malicious actors to exploit different crypto accounts.
However, the recent incident of Ripple’s co-founder suffering a hack suggests that much work still needs to be done, and no one can rest on their laurels and feel relaxed regarding the security of their crypto assets.
Therefore, everyone must ensure that they play their part and try to implement different safeguards so that they can ensure the safekeeping of their crypto assets.
