CRYPTO CRIME | Why BitGet Hacker Was Able to Move Over $80 Million in Stolen XRP

The hacker behind the Bitget exchange breach has moved about $83 million worth of stolen XRP from 3 holding wallets highlighting a key difference between the XRP Ledger’s native asset and issuer-controlled stablecoins such as USDC and USDT.

About 54 million XRP has left the five wallets that initially received nearly 103 million XRP stolen from Bitget, according to reviewed XRP Ledger data. Roughly $75 million worth of XRP remained across the original accounts as of this writing.

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Unlike USDC and USDT, XRP cannot be frozen by its issuer or by Ripple.

XRP is the native asset of the XRP Ledger and the network’s freeze controls apply to tokens issued on the ledger rather than XRP itself. Ripple therefore has no built-in mechanism to block the attacker from transferring or spending the stolen XRP.

The contrast was evident in the same BitGet breach.

Circle and Tether, the issuers of USDC and USDT, have frozen about $320,000 in stablecoins linked to the attack using controls that allow them to blacklist addresses. Exchanges receiving the stolen XRP can also restrict accounts and prevent withdrawals, but cannot freeze the XRP while it remains in an attacker-controlled wallet.