Binance, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange, has reportedly frozen $4.2 million worth of XRP in connection with the $112 million hack targeting Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen's personal wallet on January 31. This incident stands out as the largest hack of 2024 thus far. Binance CEO Richard Teng disclosed the exchange's actions on the social media platform X, confirming that the frozen funds belonged to the exploiter. Teng expressed gratitude to on-chain investigator ZachXBT and the Ripple team for their coordination and assistance during the incident.
Speculation initially suggested that Ripple itself had been hacked, leading to confusion and some reports claiming a hack of the XRP token. However, Chris Larsen clarified that it was his personal account that fell victim to the breach, not Ripple's infrastructure. The hackers responsible for the attack did not utilize a cryptocurrency mixer service or decentralized exchange to obscure their identity, deviating from recent trends where exploiters avoid centralized exchanges to reduce the risk of funds being frozen.
ZachXBT later pointed out that the Ripple properties of the affected accounts were misidentified as belonging to Ripple itself on XRP block explorers XRPScan and Bithomp, adding to the confusion surrounding the hack. Larsen revealed that several of his personal XRP accounts were compromised, resulting in the theft of 213 million XRP, equivalent to approximately $112.5 million. Ripple is reportedly engaging with cryptocurrency exchanges to freeze addresses associated with the exploit and has also informed law enforcement agencies.
While Binance took action to freeze a portion of the stolen funds, other exchanges such as OKX and Kraken have not disclosed whether they identified or froze any funds linked to the hack. Despite reaching out to Binance and Ripple for additional comments, no responses were received by the publication at the time of reporting.
