Ripple Chairman Chris Larsen Hacked For XRP Worth A Reported $112.3 Million

Updated: 01 February 2024

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Ripple co-founder and executive chairman Chris Larsen said his personal XRP accounts were hacked with reports putting the loss at as high as $112.3 million.

XRP had plunged about 5% when it was initially believed that Ripple itself was the victim of the hack after crypto analyst ZachXBT flagged the suspicious activity.

But Larsen corrected the record in a Jan. 31 post on X.

“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,“ Larsen said. “Law enforcement is already involved.”

Hackers Tried To Launder The Ripple Chairman’s XRP Through Multiple Exchanges

The perpetrator(s) reportedly tried to launder the stolen XRP through at least six different exchanges, including Binance, Kraken and OKX. Larsen did not confirm the amount of XRP that was stolen, but ZachXBT said that the breach netted 213 million XRP worth around $112.5 million at the time of the incident.

With the funds frozen, it remains unclear whether the stolen XRP is still in exchange custody.

News Of The Hack Causes A Sudden Price Drop

News of the hack quickly spread and fears that the Ripple network itself had been compromised resulted in the remittance token’s price plunging 5%.

Hourly chart for XRP/USDT (Source: TradingView)

The altcoin managed to pare losses within an hour of the news breaking. CoinGecko shows that XRP was down more than 2% over the past 24 hours to trade at $0.4951 as of 5:05 am EST.

Despite the positive momentum Ripple was able to build through 2023, the project has had a tough start to the year with the XRP price plummeting more than 19% over the past month.