ZachXBT tracks over $100m in XRP sent to exchanges by Chris Larsen

On-chain investigator ZachXBT reported that Ripple was compromised for approximately 213 million XRP, valued at around $112.5M.

In a recent post on X, ZachXBT flagged suspicious Ripple (XRP) transfers worth around $112.5M, which were sent to exchanges from a wallet reportedly activated by Chris Larsen, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Ripple. ZachXBT discovered that the stolen funds were funneled through Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, and MEXC. In total, 8 addresses were identified as being involved in the alleged theft. Prior to ZachXBT’s X posts, Ripple Labs and Larsen had not made any public statements about the attack.

In response, Chris Larsen clarified that it was his personal Ripple accounts that had been compromised, not Ripple’s corporate assets. In a post on X, he reassured his followers that they were able to quickly identify the breach and contacted exchanges to freeze the affected addresses.

Larsen later followed up by emphasizing that the breach was an “isolated incident” and that Ripple’s wallets were never compromised. He confirmed that nearly all of the stolen funds had been converted out of XRP, and noted that a significant portion had already been frozen. Larsen also mentioned that efforts to recover the remaining funds were ongoing, with law enforcement actively involved in the process.

To put this incident into perspective, these transfers come amid a strong XRP price performance, with XRP closing above $3 for 15 consecutive days, from Jan. 15 to Jan. 30, according to CoinGecko. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $3.09, just 9% shy of its all-time high of $3.40, which was set on January 7, 2018.