KEY POINTS
- As per the filing published by ZachXBT, the hack of Larsen’s private digital wallets was ‘the result of storing private keys in LastPass’
- Hackers breached LastPass in mid-2022, stealing encrypted customer password vaults and unencrypted metadata of around 25 million users
- Crypto users criticized Larsen for choosing to store his digital wallet keys on LastPass
- ZachXBT said the Ripple co-founder should have been more transparent about the matter
XRP prices tumbled over the weekend after prominent cryptocurrency sleuth ZachXBT posted details of a forfeiture complaint filed by U.S. authorities late last week that revealed Ripple Co-founder Chris Larsen supposedly stored his wallets’ private keys on password manager LastPass.
ZachXBT first flagged the hacking of Larsen’s private wallets in January 2024, saying at the time that some $112.5 million worth of XRP were wiped from the wallets. A few hours after the crypto researcher revealed the hack, Larsen said “there was unauthorized access” to some of his personal XRP accounts.
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. https://t.co/T3HtKSlzLg
— Chris Larsen (@chrislarsensf) January 31, 2024
ZachXBT Publishes Details of Complaint
On Saturday, ZachXBT took to Telegram to share some details of the complaint that “revealed the cause for the ~$150M (238M XRP) hack of Ripple co-founder, Chris Larsen’s wallet in Jan. 2024.”
As per ZachXBT, the complaint stated the hack was “the result of storing private keys in LastPass (password manager which was hacked in 2022).”
LastPass suffered a major security breach in mid-2022 that resulted in the theft of “some source cord and technical information” from the development team, resulting in the threat actors accessing “credentials and keys” that an employee used for decrypting storage volumes within the platform’s cloud-based storage device.
By November 2022, the hackers had already stolen encrypted customer password vaults and unencrypted metadata of some 25 million LastPass users.
Crypto Users Blast Larsen Over New Details
Cryptocurrency users on X were quick to criticize Larsen over the breach of his LastPass vault.
“He had one year to respond and move wallet. Wonder what Chris is doing,” said one user.
“Lol imagine founding a crypto and don’t practice the actual principles of crypto with your own product,” said another user.
ZachXBT has also taken to X to further share his thoughts on the matter. Responding to another prominent figure in the crypto space who tagged him while posting about the revelation, the crypto sleuth said Larsen should have been more transparent about the matter, or he should have “helped organize a class action against LastPass.”
Only if Chris Larsen had shown basic transparency with sharing their findings for the root cause prior to this or had helped organize a class action against LastPass.
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) March 7, 2025
Bitcoiner Mars said Larsen’s silence throughout the ordeal almost seemed like “he was paid not to bring it up.”
That’s indeed weird. Almost like he was paid not to bring it up.
— Mars (@Marsmensch) March 7, 2025
“This who you trust with your funds?” said another user, referring to Larsen.
Neither Ripple nor Larsen have issued statements on the matter as of late Sunday.
$XRP Plummets on News
Meanwhile, XRP prices plunged significantly over the weekend, dipping as low as $2.11 at one point Sunday as news about ZachXBT’s big reveal spread on social media.
CoinGecko
The XRP Ledger’s native token is down 9% in the day and was trading at around $2.13 late Sunday night.
Notably, Ripple is the largest known holder of XRP, which was rallying as high as $2.81 three days before ZachXBT flagged the filing.
