Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen revealed on Wednesday that there had been “unauthorized access” to “a few of my personal XRP accounts.” This announcement followed a post on X by crypto analyst ZachXBT, who raised concerns suggesting that Ripple had been subject to a potential hacking incident, involving approximately 213 million XRP valued at $112.5 million.
Larsen clarified the situation, stating, “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.”
“This is an isolated incident, and Ripple wallets are secure / were never compromised. We’ve confirmed nearly all the affected funds were converted out of XRP. We’re working with law enforcement and have been advised that a significant portion of funds have been frozen, and are pursuing the remainder aggressively. Many thanks to @XRPLF @Silkjaer for their help,” Larsen added.
Meanwhile, the affected addresses have been frozen in coordination with exchanges to mitigate further risks.
The initial suspicion arose when ZachXBT detected an unusual outflow of funds, initially attributing it to a possible breach at Ripple. The transactions, which occurred on January 30, included eight outgoing transactions ranging from 400,000 XRP ($200,000) to 69.7 million XRP.
The crypto sleuth identified the destinations of the outgoing funds, indicating that they were sent to various crypto exchanges, including MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, and HitBTC.
Following this incident, the value of XRP experienced a decline, falling by 4.1% to $0.50 as of 9:49 a.m. ET.
