Chris Larsen falls victim to a wallet hack targeting his XRP holdings
Chris Larsen, the co-founder of Ripple, has reported unauthorized access to some of his personal XRP wallets. This hack led to approximately 213 million XRP (worth $112.5 million) being stolen, resulting in a more than 4% drop in the price of XRP. The price decline triggered the liquidation of over $4 million in XRP positions.
Details of a $100 million hack
Chris Larsen revealed that there had been unauthorized access to his personal XRP digital wallets. This announcement followed a report by crypto investigator ZachXBT, who claimed that around 213 million XRP, valued at $112.5 million, had been stolen from Ripple. Larsen quickly detected and reported the issue, prompting exchanges to freeze the affected addresses and involving law enforcement.
An attack causing the decline of XRP
The attack resulted in eight outgoing transactions on January 30, sending the funds to various crypto exchanges, including MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, and HitBTC. This incident caused a significant drop in the price of XRP, falling by 4.1% to $0.48 shortly after the announcement. The unauthorized access and hack raised concerns within the crypto community. However, XRP quickly rebounded and is now trading around $0.51.
Massive liquidation of XRP positions
The XRP price drop led to the liquidation of over $4 million in XRP positions, primarily long positions, with approximately $3.8 million liquidated. This market reaction highlights the volatility and sensitivity of cryptocurrencies to security incidents and negative news.
