Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen Loses $150 Million in XRP After Security Breach
1min read Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen recently experienced a substantial financial setback due to a security breach that compromised 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 linked to a 2022 security incident involving the password management system LastPass, where hackers gained access to private keys stored within the system.
On-chain security expert ZachXBT was the first to report the attack, underscoring the vulnerabilities in password management systems. The stolen funds were swiftly transferred to various crypto exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, and OKX. Larsen acknowledged the breach, stressing that it was an isolated incident affecting 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 immediately involved, and several exchanges froze portions of the stolen funds. Binance alone halted $4.2 million worth of XRP. Despite these efforts, a significant 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 in XRP.
This incident is part of a broader pattern of crypto thefts linked to the 2022 LastPass security breach. Just before Christmas last year, 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 brings 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.
