Just In: New 443,112,390 XRP Moved to Unrecognized Destination Amid Failed Hack

Another significant uncommon movement of XRP between unrecognized destinations has caught the crypto community’s attention.

Within the last three hours Whale Alert captured the movement of 443,112,390 XRP. At the time of the report, the transaction was valued at over $254,799,709.

Per the disclosure, the sender’s and recipient’s addresses are unknown wallets. Moreover, the receiver address is a newly established XRP wallet.

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 443,112,390 #XRP (254,799,709 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown new wallethttps://t.co/jLgHRjYTvV

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 16, 2024

Looking On-Chain

However, data from XRP blockchain explorer Bithomp suggested that the sender and receiver of the 443.11 million XRP are the same entity: the Bitvavo exchange.

In particular, an XRP wallet affiliated with Bitvavo, which has just two transactions to its name, orchestrated the substantial transaction. The wallet sent the tokens to a new XRP address with a time stamp of January 16 (09:03 UTC).

This unit transaction effectively activated the XRP destination. At the time of reporting, the 443.11 million still resides in the new XRP wallet.

The motive behind the movement remains to be determined. The last time Whale Alert documented a transaction of similar magnitude emanating from the exchange was precisely three months ago.

Nonetheless, the exchange has become renowned for its persistent transfer of XRP assets between untagged destinations.

A Similar But More Startling Case

Meanwhile, this latest transaction from Bitvavo comes at a time when the crypto community recently witnessed a foiled fraud attempt involving 25 billion XRP tokens moved in a single transaction.

Initially, Whale Alert, functioning as an automated system, called attention to the transaction. However, the update was subsequently removed. The deletion occurred because the transaction was ultimately unsuccessful.

The scam 25 billion XRP transaction targeted the Bitfinex exchange. Fortunately, the Bitfinex team’s robust security measures played a pivotal role in thwarting the attempted scam.

The event sparked intense reactions within the community, prompting a response from Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz.

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