Original - Odaily

Author - Loopy Lu

Yesterday, the news that “$100 million in XRP was stolen” swept the entire crypto market. In just one day, this incident turned around one after another, triggering many questions and discussions.

After it became clear that Ripple did not suffer losses but that its Lianchuang personal account was stolen, the community expressed distrust in Ripples independence.

Odaily takes you to review the causes and consequences of the XRP theft case and its impact on the market.

Up to 200 million XRP stolen, the biggest hacking case of the year

Yesterday evening, on-chain analyst ZachXBT discovered that Ripple had been stolen. For a time, XRP, an old mainstream currency, became the center of market discussion.

ZachXBT stated on the X platform that Ripple was hacked and 213 million XRP were stolen, worth approximately $112.5 million. Information on the chain shows that the stolen funds have been cleaned through MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, etc.

Or affected by this large-scale theft incident, the price of XRP has also fluctuated significantly. For a while, it was unclear whether it was the hackers who were selling, or the investor panic caused by the market.

The OKX market shows that XRP fell rapidly in a short period of time, reaching a minimum of 0.485 USDT, with an amplitude of 4.81% in one hour. But soon, XRP prices recovered their losses, and even turned from falling to rising in the following hours.

Just one month into 2024, this hacker has set a new record for us. This is the largest cryptocurrency theft of 2024 so far and the 20th largest cryptocurrency theft in the crypto world to date.

Kraken spokesperson Megan Thorpe also confirmed that Kraken was aware of the hack, saying: We are aware of this incident. We have incident response capabilities and will proactively review and identify such incidents and engage with victims. Kraken It will prevent it from being used in this way.

The follow-up to this incident, and Ripple’s official statement, caused some changes in the direction of the incident.

Ripple company is safe, founder suffered

Shortly after the theft, Ripple founder Chris Larsen made an official statement on the X platform.

He said this was an isolated incident and that Ripple wallets were safe and had never been compromised. Meanwhile, Ripple is working with law enforcement, who have learned that a significant portion of the funds have been frozen and are actively pursuing the remaining funds.

(X tweet from Ripple co-founder)

(X tweet from Ripple CEO)

In another statement, we were able to learn more details about the incident. Ripple may not have suffered a loss, but Ripples hapless co-founder Qi did.

Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen said his personal XRP account suffered unauthorized access. As of now, we dont know how this intrusion occurred.

Independence raises questions, will there be a repeat of the big sell-offs of the past?

Data from XRPScan shows that the hacked wallet Ripple was activated on November 5, 2018 by another wallet named FundingWallet 1. This wallet was activated in 2013 from Larsens account.

Following Chris Larsen’s clarification, it was learned that the Ripple company’s funds are still safe. But Odaily discovered an interesting phenomenon from the tweets - many netizens expressed satire on this incident, questioning the independence of Ripple.

In his statement, he said some of my personal accounts were stolen. This has also led to speculation about how much XRP Ripple executives actually hold. Some community members have called on Ripple executives to further disclose their crypto wallets and XRP holdings to increase transparency.

For example, ZachXBT, who disclosed the theft, made the comment, a completely separate entity, in a bid to mock Ripples control of XRP.

Twitter user Cash Looter expressed doubts about the exaggerated wealth of the co-founder, Brother, how did you personally own $100 million in XRP? Duo Nine YCC also had the same confusion, Oh, so you can easily own a value of 1.12 Billions of dollars in XRP.”

Satoshi Club expressed distrust in the transparency of executives, If on-chain detectives never disclosed it, you wouldnt tell the public, would you?

Ripple has long since left the center of market attention, but it still has a huge market value and has been among the top 10 in the crypto market for many years.

According to data from Coingecko, XRP is currently worth approximately $26.8 billion, making it the sixth largest cryptocurrency. In the long history of XRP, large sales by executives have already occurred and lasted for several years.

Ripples first chief technology officer, Jed McCaleb, was a member of the core founding team when the project was launched, and shared a share of approximately 20 billion XRP with Chris Larsen and Arthur Britto in the initial distribution of XRP. In 2014, due to a conflict of ideas, McCaleb chose to leave, taking a total of approximately 9 billion XRP with him. McCaleb thus began an eight-year sell-off of XRP. This has also been one of the most important sources of selling pressure for XRP.

Over a period of 8 years, according toOdailys estimate, McCaleb’s total cash-out value is approximately US$3.1267 billion.

Due to his departure from Ripple, McCalebs sell-off has been witnessed by all, but the community still doesnt know how much XRP the other founders of Ripple own, whether they sold in large amounts, and when they sold.

Therefore, after this personal wallet was stolen, the community began to ridicule this long-standing project. In the long history of Ripple, what beneficial builds have executives brought to this project, and how much selling pressure have they added?

As an early project in the crypto world, Ripples independence is indeed being tested by the community. On the long road of development, many investors have also lost confidence in it.

OKX data shows that with BTC as the benchmark, XRP prices have continued to fluctuate widely in recent years without achieving significant increases. The current XRP/BTC exchange rate has fallen 74% from its highest point and is at a relatively low level, but has not yet reached the lowest point.

(XRP/BTC weekly chart)

In the fourth quarter of 2023, Ripple Labs won a lawsuit against US regulators. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York declared that XRP is not a security. The SEC has withdrawn all charges against Ripple CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen. At present, the legal disputes that have plagued Ripple for several years have ended. In 2024 (in the bull market expected by the market), we are still looking forward to this ancient project to make some eye-catching innovations or changes. The road ahead for Ripple may still be quite difficult.