On January 30th, over 200 million XRP tokens worth $112.5 million were transferred from crypto wallets linked to Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen. The funds were moved across almost a dozen addresses before being deposited to major cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Gate, and Kraken.
Independent blockchain investigator ZachXBT first uncovered the suspicious transfers and reported on the activity. Shortly after, Larsen issued a statement confirming there had been unauthorized access to some of his personal XRP accounts. He clarified that the tokens were not under Ripple’s corporate control and stated that exchanges and law enforcement had been informed.
The timing and method of the transactions raised skepticism about whether the incident was a theft. Security experts pointed to delays in execution and the manual nature of the transfers as unusual for a hack. Some speculated it could represent an insider decision to dump XRP holdings.
Nonetheless, the news negatively impacted XRP’s market value. Prices dropped around 5% to about $0.49 with trading volume surging over 85%. The token’s market capitalization declined by more than 4% as well.
The event comes amid rising crypto crime, with over $600 million stolen by North Korea’s Lazarus group last year alone. Despite this, chain analysis firm Chainalysis reported an overall 39% annual decline in cryptocurrency flows to cybercriminals and other bad actors. So while threats remain, there are some positive signs.
The investigation into the unauthorized XRP movements is still unfolding. But the incident has already reminded the crypto community of lingering security risks, even for longtime industry players holding substantial token balances derived from founding or leading major projects.
