Ripple co-founder reports unauthorized access to some personal XRP accounts

Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen said Wednesday that there had been "unauthorized access" to "a few of my personal XRP accounts." His comments followed a post on X from crypto sleuth ZachXBT, who said that it appeared Ripple "was hacked" for about 213 million XRP worth $112.5 million. 

"Yesterday, there was unauthorized access to a few of my personal XRP accounts (not Ripple)," Larsen said. "We were quickly able to catch the problem and notify exchanges to freeze the affected addresses. Law enforcement is already involved." 

Larsen later added, "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."

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse minced no words regarding the incident. "Given some irresponsible speculation and reporting, I want to reiterate that NO Ripple-managed wallets were compromised. Full stop," he wrote on social media.

ZachXBT first noticed the suspicious outflow, though they had attributed it to Ripple itself. Eight outgoing transactions occurred on Jan. 30, ranging between 400,000 XRP ($200,000) and 69.7 million XRP.

XRP declines

The outgoing funds were then sent to the crypto exchanges MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX and HitBTC, the crypto sleuth added. 

XRP declined on the news, falling 4.1% to $0.50 as of 9:49 a.m. ET, according to The Block's Price page for the token.

(Updates with an additional quote from Chris Larsen and a statement from Brad Garlinghouse.)