Crypto news: Ripple, the blockchain payment company, has recently experienced a hack regarding a significant breach in its security, resulting in the loss of a considerable amount of XRP.
Let’s see below all the details.
Crypto news: Ripple and the millions of stolen XRP after the hack
As anticipated, Ripple has recently faced a significant security breach, causing the loss of a considerable amount of XRP.
The cyber attack, identified by ZachXBT, an investigator in the field of decentralized finance (DeFi), has raised serious concerns about the security of the protocol.
In addition, it triggered a series of illicit transactions involving the stolen XRP. According to the conducted investigations, the cyber attack led to the theft of over 213 million XRP, equivalent to a value exceeding 112 million dollars.
The stolen funds were subsequently laundered through various cryptocurrency exchanges, including MEXC, Gate, Binance, Kraken, OKX, HTX, HitBTC, and several undisclosed platforms.
As highlighted by several sources, the perpetrators of the security breach have made eight transactions to different addresses, as documented on the blockchain.
Following the incident, the price of XRP has dropped to 0.5070 dollars, continuing to decrease until recently reaching a minimum of about 0.4860 dollars.
The news of the cyber attack has accentuated the downward trend of the token, which has already recorded a decline of 19% in the last 30 days and 4% in the last 24 hours.
How will Ripple deal with the hack?
The next steps that Ripple will take to address this security breach remain uncertain. The company’s response to the situation and the measures to enhance its security infrastructure will be closely monitored.
In a subsequent update, Ripple executives clarified the issue, stating that the compromised wallets belonged to co-founder Chris Larsen.
Brad Garlinghouse has provided further clarification, stating the following:
“Given some irresponsible speculations and reports, I want to reiterate that NO wallet managed by Ripple has been compromised. Period.”
Looking at the daily chart of XRP, the next significant support level for the token is identified at $1, which prevented further declines after the news was released.
If this level does not sustain further declines, the next support for the token would be positioned at 0.4876 dollars.
Ripple releases $500 million worth of XRP: analysis of the monthly unlock
On the first day of each month, Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP tokens from its escrow system on the XRP Ledger.
For February 1st, the company has planned three separate transactions, unlocking a total of 500 million dollars in XRP. This operation consists of transactions of 100 million, 400 million, and 500 million XRP.
It is of significant interest that the February 2024 unlock represents 1.84% of the current circulating supply of 54.37 billion XRP and 2.19% of the remaining 45.67 billion XRP tokens under Ripple’s control.
These will be released monthly until June 2027 through escrow deposits. In particular, “Ripple (22)” will unlock 500 million XRP previously locked since December 2019.
On January 1st, Ripple unlocked 1 billion XRP tokens, but promptly relocked 80% of them in escrow deposits, to be completed by May and June 2027.
Despite holding only 200 million XRP, the company has spent 226.34 million tokens (equivalent to 113.17 million dollars) from its main address, “Ripple 1”, in January. These sales occurred in three batches, all sent to the same address, “rP4X2…Kxv3”.
Ripple sent an additional 200 million XRP to its reserves on January 1st. Furthermore, the payment protocol made a transaction of 100 million tokens on January 7th, one of 80 million XRP on January 16th, and a payment of 46.34 million XRP on January 30th,
By requesting the use of 26.34 million tokens previously held in the company’s reserves from previous unlocks.