XRP Falls to $1 as a Bridge Hack Drains 200,000 XRP: What's Going On?

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) fell to $1 for the first time since November 2024 after a hack drained roughly 200,000 XRP from the Coreum bridge on the XRP Ledger.

What Happened to the Coreum Bridge? Inside the 200,000 XRP Exploit

According to blockchain analytics site XRPL.to, the Coreum bridge held roughly 200,410 XRP on August 9 before an attacker drained it to 493.5 XRP in just 97 minutes.

The attacker never actually sent any real XRP to the bridge. Instead, they moved the bridge’s own token between their own two wallets while attaching a fake deposit label. 

The bridge’s software saw that transaction in its history and mistakenly treated it as a real incoming deposit, crediting the attacker with XRP they never sent. 

With a fake balance now showing on the system, the attacker simply withdrew real XRP through the normal process and the bridge approved every payment.

The two wallets that received the funds forwarded the XRP onward within hours to older staging wallets, a classic laundering pattern. 

The bridge halted the following afternoon. XRPL.to concluded the flaw was in the relay software’s logic rather than stolen keys, which is why 21 independent relayers all fell for the same trick at the same time.