Binance blocks 4.2M XRP worth from $112M Ripple hack
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance blocked a $112 million hack of Ripple co-founder's private wallet on January 31st worth $4.2 million worth of XRP, making it the biggest hack of 2024.
In an X-Post, Binance CEO Richard Teng said they had frozen the exploiter's address and thanked on-chain sleuth ZachXBT and Ripple's team for coordination and assistance.
We are happy to say that the #Binance team has blocked $4.2 million worth of $XRP stolen by the exploiter after learning about the exploit on @Ripple early on.
Appreciate your efforts to suggest exchanges for both communities – as always @zachxbt …
— Richard Teng (@_RichardTeng) February 1, 2024
Thomas Silkejer, head of analytics and compliance at the XRP Ledger Foundation, responded to Teng's post and said that XRPLF first investigated the issue, which was later popularized by ZachXBT.
There were early speculations that Ripple, the fintech company behind XRP, had been hacked, with some news that the XRP token had been hacked. However, Ripple co-founder Chris Larson revealed that his personal accounts had been hacked.
The hacker behind the exploit surprisingly didn't use any hybrid services or decentralized exchanges to hide their identity. In recent times most exploiters have stopped using centralized exchanges for fear of account bans.
ZachXBT was later tagged as part of Ripple by XRPScan and Bithomp (XRP block explorers) to the affected account, creating confusion about the Ripple hack.
Ripple's co-founder and CEO Larsen stated that some of his private XRP accounts were compromised and 213 million XRP were stolen, however, Ripple was not affected by the exploit. Larson also said that they are in talks with crypto exchanges to stop the exploiter's address and have notified law enforcement agencies about the same.
Related: FTX to pay customers in full but not restart exchange, lawyer says
According to ZachXBT, the exploiters made 213 million XRP worth about $112.5 million, and then the attacker(s) tried to launder the XRP using at least six different exchanges, including MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX and HitBTC.
While Binance has suspended some of the stolen funds, other crypto exchanges, including OKX and Krkaken, have yet to say whether they have identified or suspended any funds linked to the hack. Cointelegraph reached out to Binance and Ripple for comments on the matter, but did not receive a response at press time.
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