UPDATE: Binance Comes To The Aid Of Ripple Founder Following High-Profile Hack

Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen recently experienced a spot of bad luck after one of his wallets was hacked.

The hackers managed to drain 213 million XRP from the wallet, valued at roughly $112.5 million at the time of this writing. It is important to note that although this was widely reported to be a ‘Ripple’ hack, the incident was isolated and only affected Larsen.

Now, Binance has come to the aid of the Ripple founder by freezing $4.2 million in funds stolen by the hacker.

Current Binance CEO Richard Teng explained in an online post: “After finding out early on about the exploit that occurred at Ripple, we’re happy to say that the Binance team has managed to freeze $4.2 Million worth of XRP stolen by the exploiter. We appreciate both the communities’ efforts in flagging it to exchanges.”

After finding out early on about the exploit that occurred at @Ripple, we’re happy to say that the #Binance team has managed to freeze $4.2 Million worth of $XRP stolen by the exploiter.

We appreciate both the communities efforts in flagging it to exchanges – as always @zachxbt…

— Richard Teng (@_RichardTeng) February 1, 2024

Following the hack, Ripple Co-founder and Executive Chairman Chris Larsen announced: “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.”

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. https://t.co/T3HtKSlzLg

— Chris Larsen (@chrislarsensf) January 31, 2024

Coin Edition provided the latest update and this statement from the Binance CEO:

“We will continue to support Ripple in their investigations and their efforts to retrieve back the funds, including closely monitoring the majority of funds still in the exploiter’s external wallets in case they deposit to Binance.”

Larsen went on: “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.”

Anyone else wondering how Chris Larsen’s $XRP was hacked in the first place? 👀

— XRPcryptowolf (@XRPcryptowolf) February 1, 2024

Tech Crunch provided some background information on the hack:

According to on-chain data from XRPScan, the hacked wallet was called “Ripple (50)” and was activated by a separate wallet called “~FundingWallet1” on November 5, 2018. The ~FundingWallet1 was activated by Larsen’s account on February 6, 2013, about a month after his own account, ~chrislarsen, was created.

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