In a captivating turn of events, the notable breach of Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen’s wallet in January 2024, which resulted in the theft of 283 million XRP valued at approximately $150 million, has been linked to the security compromise of the popular password manager, LastPass. The revelation was recently brought to light by renowned blockchain investigator ZachXBT.
The Sequence of Events Leading to Ripple Co-founder’s Loss
On March 7, Friday, ZachXBT revealed on his Telegram channel a screenshot of a forfeiture complaint that was filed the previous day by the United States law enforcement. According to ZachXBT’s analysis, Larsen’s substantial loss of approximately $150 million in XRP tokens occurred due to the storage of his private keys in a password manager, specifically LastPass.
To put the situation into perspective, LastPass was involved in significant data breaches and security incidents during late 2022 that consequently led to data leaks and exploits of customer password vaults. By September 2023, a probable link between these security incidents and over $35 million in stolen cryptocurrency from multiple victims since December 2022 had been established. Based on reports from Bitcoinist, around $4.4 million worth of digital assets from 85 separate wallets owned by 25 LastPass users were stolen on a single day, October 25, 2023.
In the closing days of January 2024, ZachXBT shared in an online post that Ripple was scammed for about 213 million XRP, equivalent to approximately $112.5 million at the time. The co-founder later verified that his personal XRP wallets were indeed accessed without authorization, though Ripple’s was untouched.
As spotlighted in the forfeiture complaint, Larsen’s private wallet keys appeared to have been compromised in two substantial data security violations that impacted an online password manager in 2022. The FBI discovered that the stolen passwords from these breaches were utilized to illegally gain customer data and assets.
Interestingly, the forfeiture complaint does not directly implicate LastPass as the compromised password manager. However, it does mention that one of the victims resides in San Francisco (a city where Larsen, according to his LinkedIn profile, is based).
In his Telegram channel post, ZachXBT explained that “up to this point Chris Larsen had not publicly disclosed the cause of the theft.” Recently, the blockchain investigator connected a series of dormant XRP wallets, holding over 2.7 billion XRP (approximately $7.18 billion in value), to the Ripple co-founder.
Quick Glimpse at XRP Price
At the time of writing, the price of XRP is approximately $2.37, showing a rise of over 5% in the last 24 hours.
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FAQs
What is XRP?
XRP is a digital asset and cryptocurrency that was created by Ripple Labs Inc., a technology company that specializes in payment and real-time gross settlement system technologies.
What happened to Chris Larsen’s XRP assets?
Chris Larsen’s XRP assets were stolen due to a security breach where his private keys were stored in the password manager, LastPass. This resulted in the theft of 283 million XRP, valued at approximately $150 million.
What was the cause of Chris Larsen’s XRP theft?
The theft occurred due to major data security breaches that affected the commercial online password manager where Larsen kept his private keys. The stolen passwords from these breaches were used to illegally access customer data and assets.
What is the current price of XRP?
At the time of this writing, the price of XRP stands at approximately $2.37, showing an increase of over 5% in the last 24 hours.
