In a surprising development, Binance swiftly responded to the massive $112 million hack of Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen’s wallet on January 31. The exchange took immediate action by freezing $4.2 million worth of XRP associated with the incident, making it the most significant cryptocurrency hack of 2024.
Binance CEO Richard Teng expressed gratitude in a post, acknowledging the successful freezing of the exploiter’s address. He credited the collaborative efforts of on-chain investigator ZachXBT and the Ripple team for this accomplishment.
Teng said XRP Ledger developers, who maintain the blockchain that uses XRP, had flagged the exploit to exchanges and asked them to look out for deposits related to exploiter wallets.
“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,” Teng said.
Exchanges On The Lookout For The Stolen XRP Tokens
Chris Larsen, the co-founder of Ripple, made a recent announcement on X that his wallets fell victim to a hacking incident resulting in the theft of funds. Fortunately, he assured the public that Ripple’s accounts remained secure and unaffected by the breach.
Exchanges promptly took action by freezing the addresses associated with the stolen funds. It was confirmed that law enforcement was already engaged in the matter by the time Larsen addressed the rumors, indicating a swift response to investigate and address the security breach.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also confirmed that Ripple itself was not affected, calling the speculation “irresponsible.”
No matter what anyone thinks of it, digital asset recovery will become widespread in the future. There is no way companies and governments will widely adopt blockchain technology if the risk of losing funds to hacks and scams is too great. There must be a way to recover property when it is stolen.
Whatever happens to Chris Larsen’s stolen XRP tokens, future victims will have a way to legally enforce their property rights, even if that property is digital.
