A wallet belonging to Ripple Chairman Chris Larsen moves 50 million XRP to a new unidentified address.
It’s worth noting that this recent transaction is the first significant outbound transfer from the wallet since its creation. This wallet, established in the early days of the XRPL and initially funded with a substantial 500 million XRP in February 2013, forms part of the XRP allocations to the Ripple Chairman.
Up until now, the wallet had not moved any tokens, except for a small transfer of 1 XRP in December 2017. However, the latest significant outflow from the address was tracked by whale tracking resource Whale Alert.
🚨 🚨 50,000,000 #XRP (29,120,312 USD) transferred from Chris Larsen to unknown wallethttps://t.co/D9iopMqePM
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 16, 2024
Details of the XRP Transaction
On-chain data confirms that the transaction took place on Sept. 16 at 23:17 UTC, involving exactly 50 million XRP valued at $29.12 million at the time. The assets were transferred to a new, unidentified address created specifically for this transfer.
Despite initial speculation around the possibility of a hack due to the unusual movement of funds from this wallet, The Crypto Basic has confirmed that this is unlikely.
A similar incident involving Larsen’s wallet occurred in February, where millions in XRP were stolen by hackers. This latest transfer, however, appears to be authorized by Larsen himself, as indicated by the on-chain data.
Internal Fund Movement
The data suggests that the recent fund movement was indeed authorized by Larsen. The sending wallet activated the recipient address before transferring the 50 million XRP. At present, the recipient address has retained the tokens, alleviating concerns of a potential exploit.
With the hack theory ruled out, the purpose of the transaction remains open to speculation. Some have jokingly suggested that the funds could be supporting the Kamala Harris campaign, although this is purely speculative at this point.
Adding context, The Crypto Basic previously reported that Larsen, along with 87 other business executives, expressed support for Harris’ presidential campaign. Larsen became the second prominent crypto executive to publicly endorse Harris, following an endorsement from Uphold co-founder J.P. Theriot.
