Was 50% Of XRP Supply Sent To Bitfinex? Separating Facts From Fiction
15 January 2024 - 7:20PM
NEWSBTC
A transaction involving a whopping 25.6 billion XRP (valued at
nearly $15 billion), nearly half of the total circulating supply of
approximately 54.26 billion, raised alarm within the crypto sector
in the late evening of January 14. The transfer was reported to
have originated from an unknown wallet to the cryptocurrency
exchange Bitfinex. Were 25.6 Billion XRP Really Moved? However,
further investigation revealed this to be a failed attempt at
exploiting the “Partial Payments” function of the XRP Ledger, as
confirmed by Paolo Ardoino, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at
Bitfinex. The incident first came to public attention when Whale
Alert, a renowned blockchain tracking platform, reported the
massive transaction on X. This initial report, which was later
retracted, created a stir in the market, raising concerns over a
potential security breach in the XRP Ledger that could severely
impact XRP’s market price. Related Reading: BNB’s Liquidity Fell In
Q4 2023, Bitcoin, XRP, And Dogecoin Lead Whale Alert acknowledged
the error in their reporting with a clarification: “There was an
issue with properly reading the Ripple node response, resulting in
a few wrong posts. We fixed the issue.” Paolo Ardoino, who also
holds the position of CEO of Tether, provided further insight into
the incident, stating: “Someone attempted to attack Bitfinex via
‘Partial Payments Exploit’. Attack failed since Bitfinex properly
handles the ‘delivered_amount’ data field.” Ardoino also referenced
a section on xrpl.org that explains partial payments in detail.
This feature of the XRP Ledger allows a sender to enable a “Partial
Payment” flag, resulting in the delivery of an amount less than
what is indicated in the Amount field. The exploit lies in the
ability to manipulate this feature to deceive exchanges and
gateways. The crucial factor in preventing such exploits is for
platforms to use the ‘delivered_amount’ metadata field, rather than
the Amount field, to determine the actual amount transferred.
Related Reading: XRP Burn Hits Major Milestone, Can The Burns
Propel Price To $1? In this particular case, the attacker only sent
16 XRP – a stark contrast to the reported 25.6 billion XRP. This
small transaction triggered an alert to the on-chain monitoring
system due to the way the Whale Alert systems process and report
transactions. Attacker Tried Other Exchanges As Well Additionally,
blockchain data revealed that similar failed attempts were made on
other prominent cryptocurrency exchanges. Binance faced an
attempted transfer of 58.9 billion XRP, and Bitstamp was targeted
with a 26,200,000 XRP transfer. These transactions, like the one
aimed at Bitfinex, were part of the exploiter’s strategy and did
not result in the transfer of significant sums of the
cryptocurrency. At press time, the market price of XRP showed
resilience against these incidents, maintaining stability at $0.58.
Nevertheless, the XRP bears showed their strength again with
yesterday’s weekly close. The price closed below the critical
resistance of the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement level at $0.59.
However, the bulls at least managed to defend the 200-day
exponential moving average (EMA). Featured image from Shutterstock,
chart from TradingView.com
Ripple (COIN:XRPUSD)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2024 to Jul 2024
Ripple (COIN:XRPUSD)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jul 2023 to Jul 2024