Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT revealed Wednesday that the Ripple network has been hacked for approximately 213 million XRP, worth $112.5 million. The security breach has triggered a 5% price decrease for the Ripple XRP cryptocurrency.
It appears @Ripple was hacked for ~213M XRP ($112.5M)
Source address
rJNLz3A1qPKfWCtJLPhmMZAfBkutC2QojmSo far the stolen funds have been laundered through MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, etc pic.twitter.com/HKGYsLQeMv
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 31, 2024
Ripple Records $112.5M Hack
ZachXBT stated that the malicious actor moved the stolen funds from an XRP wallet address into eight crypto wallet addresses. These assets have been laundered through crypto exchanges such as Binance, MEXC, Gate.io, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, and more.
The attack has caused a slight price decline for the XRP cryptocurrency. The crypto’s price dropped by over 5% in the last 24 hours, shortly after ZachXBT identified the security exploit. The asset currently trades at $0.499.
Source: CoinStats
Ripple Co-founder Breaks Silence
Chris Larsen, the co-founder and executive chairman of Ripple, has acknowledged the exploit and addressed the issue. He clarified that the affected wallet belonged to him and not the company. He stated that an unauthorized source gained access to some of his XRP accounts.
Larsen added that the Ripple team has commenced an investigation and contacted crypto exchanges to freeze the affected wallet addresses. He revealed that “law enforcement authorities are already involved” in the investigation.
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. https://t.co/T3HtKSlzLg
— Chris Larsen (@chrislarsensf) January 31, 2024
Meanwhile, the latest exploit discovery joins the long list of crypto hacks that ZachXBT has discovered. After surviving a rug pull, the on-chain detective stayed committed to helping the crypto community downsize security threats. In the past, the blockchain detective has helped to retrieve stolen funds.
