Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple, lost 283 million XRP, worth $150 million after hackers broke into his wallet. The attack happened in January 2024, but new details reveal the breach was done via private keys stored in LastPass—a password manager that was hacked in 2022.
The news came from a forfeiture complaint filed by U.S. law enforcement and was shared by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT. In a post on Telegram today, Zach shared that the stolen XRP was quickly moved across different wallets and exchanges before Larsen’s team noticed.
Back in January when the hack happened, Larsen posted on X that: “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.”
XRP tumbles in reaction to the hack details
Once the complaint was made public, XRP’s value tumbled by over 7%, now sitting at $2.41 per token at press time, according to data from Coin Gecko. Traders reacted fast, dumping tokens as concerns over security and Ripple’s actions once again resurfaced.
Despite the loss, Larsen still holds over 2.7 billion XRP, worth $7.18 billion. Many of these wallets have been inactive for 6-7 years, according to Zach. His findings came right after Donald Trump announced plans for a U.S. strategic crypto reserve that would include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, and XRP itself.
On-chain data from Arkham Intelligence shows that in January 2025, a $109 million XRP transfer took place, with the funds moved to Coinbase, Bitstamp, and Bybit, triggering more speculation about what’s happening with Larsen’s holdings.
In his Telegram post, Zach alleged that Ripple’s Larsen may have lost access to some of his wallets or transferred control of them in 2013. Back in September 2020, Larsen also moved 500 million XRP—worth $115 million at the time—to an unknown destination. He later said it was sent to NYDIG for security reasons, but some in the crypto community believed back then and still do that it was a hidden sale strategy, though notably, no solid proof has ever backed up these claims.
XRP prices temporarily jumped 18% after the initial announcement, hitting $2.93 before settling at $2.60. Larsen will not attend Donald Trump’s White House crypto summit, which just started. But Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is expected to be there.
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