Ripple's XRP Drops 5% After Executive Is Hacked, Sparking Rumors of Network Breach

Ripple's XRP token fell by more than 5% on Wednesday following speculation that the network might have been hacked to the tune of $112.5 million.

Chris Larsen, Ripple's Executive Chairman, clarified in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that there had been a breach to his "personal XRP accounts," but not to Ripple itself. "We were quickly able to catch the problem and notify exchanges to freeze the affected addresses. Law enforcement is already involved," Larsen wrote.

The incident was initially flagged by Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT, who claimed on X that 213 million XRP tokens had been siphoned out of a large wallet on the XRP Leger blockchain. The funds were subsequently laundered through multiple exchanges including Binance, Kraken and OKX.

It appears @Ripple was hacked for ~213M XRP ($112.5M)

Source address
rJNLz3A1qPKfWCtJLPhmMZAfBkutC2Qojm

So 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 (XRP) is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, according to CoinMarketCap, and it is the native token of the XRP Ledger, which is a blockchain that specializes in payments. Ripple Labs, the company that built the network, uses it to power tools like RippleNet, its cross-border payments platform focused on financial institutions.

Ripple Labs was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2020 over claims that it committed fraud by selling XRP tokens without first registering them as securities. Larsen was directly named in the suit, but he and his company were handed a big victory in July 2023 when a judge stopped short of defining XRP as an outright security.

XRP is currently trading at $0.497 having begun the day at $0.525, according to CoinDesk data.