Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen Loses $150 Million in XRP After LastPass Breach

Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen recently experienced a substantial financial setback due to a security breach involving his XRP holdings. The incident, which took place in January 2024, resulted in the theft of 213 million XRP tokens, valued at approximately $112 million at the time. The breach was traced back to a 2022 security incident involving the password management system LastPass, where hackers compromised private keys stored in the system.

On-chain security expert ZachXBT was the first to report the attack, highlighting the vulnerability in password management systems. The stolen funds were quickly moved to various crypto exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, and OKX. Larsen confirmed the breach, emphasizing that it was an isolated incident involving his personal accounts and not Ripple’s corporate wallets. He had not previously disclosed the cause of the security breach.

Following the hack, law enforcement was promptly involved, and several exchanges froze portions of the stolen funds. Despite these efforts, a large amount of the stolen XRP had already been laundered or converted out of XRP by the attackers. The total loss from the breach was estimated to be around $150 million, making it one of the largest crypto thefts linked to the LastPass breach.

Last December, cybersecurity experts raised concerns about a wave of crypto thefts linked to the 2022 LastPass security breach. ZachXBT reported that just before Christmas, the ‘LastPass threat actor’ stole approximately $5.4 million in crypto assets from over 40 victim addresses, converting the assets to Ethereum and Bitcoin. This event brought the total losses to $250 million. The attackers exploited data stolen during the 2022 incident, in which hackers gained access to LastPass’s systems and exfiltrated encrypted user data.