Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen’s XRP wallet hacked for estimated $112 million

Chris Larsen, executive chairman and co-founder of Ripple, said on Jan. 31 that several of his personal XRP accounts had been hacked.

He wrote in a 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. Law enforcement is already involved.”

Larsen went on to call the hack an “isolated incident” and reaffirmed that Ripple’s wallets are secure and have not been compromised. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse made a similar comment, writing:

“Given some irresponsible speculation and reporting, I want to reiterate that NO Ripple-managed wallets were compromised. Full stop.”

Thomas Silkjær, Head of Analytics and Compliance at the XRP Ledger Foundation, provided further details. He said that the crypto exchange WhiteBit alerted his team of suspicious deposits on Jan. 30. Silkjær’s team then informed Larsen of the incident and began cooperating in the investigation.

Stolen XRP likely totals $112 million

Larsen and other Ripple-related individuals have not confirmed the amount stolen. However, on-chain sleuth ZachXBT previously reported that the addresses in question were hacked for 213 million XRP, or $112.5 million.

He also noted that the stolen funds have been laundered through exchanges, including MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, and HitBTC.

ZachXBT speculated that Larsen’s private keys were compromised but did not suggest any further details on how this may have occurred.

ZachXBT initially suggested that Ripple itself was attacked. Following Larsen’s official statement, he continued to downplay any meaningful distinction between Ripple’s corporate accounts and Larsen’s personal accounts, writing sarcastically: “Totally completely separate entities … wink wink.”

That comment seemingly refers to the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission’s past allegations. The agency previously claimed that Larsen and Garlinghouse held 20 billion XRP at an early date and engaged in unregistered personal token sales alongside Ripple’s corporate sales. The SEC dropped all charges against both executives in 2023; Ripple was partially cleared of related charges.