$112 million stolen from founder of Ripple cryptocurrency platform

The co-founder of blockchain company Ripple says that more than $112 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from him.

The theft occurred Tuesday and was uncovered by a popular blockchain security expert ZachXBT, who identified 213 million coins of Ripple’s cryptocurrency XRP being moved and laundered through Binance, Kraken and other crypto platforms. XRP is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Ripple did not respond to requests for comment about the report, but its co-founder and executive chairman, Chris Larsen, took to social media to deny that the company itself was hacked.

“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 said.

“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.”

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse confirmed Larsen’s statement and reiterated that “no Ripple-managed wallets were compromised.”

The funds are allegedly being laundered through eight different transactions involving millions of XRP, according to ZachXBT

The company was founded in 2012 and now markets itself as a currency exchange and remittance network.

The attack comes one week after researchers at Chainalysis said hackers siphoned $1.7 billion from cryptocurrency platforms in 2023 — down by about $2 billion from a record high set the previous year.