The XRP stockpile linked to the October hack of Binance had fallen to about 60 million tokens at Nov. 10, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. The firm said another round of conversions, largely into Bitcoin, drove the decline. The account was reported by CryptoSlate.
Elliptic’s Nov. 10 update reported about 35 million additional XRP swapped through THORChain overnight, almost all of it into Bitcoin.
A shrinking balance over two weeks
Bitquery’s trace of the theft identified 233.5 million XRP sent out of five Binance accounts during the Oct. 29 attack, according to the analytics firm.
Elliptic’s estimates of the remaining balance fell from about 192 million XRP on Nov. 6 to about 148 million on Nov. 7 and about 95 million by early afternoon on Nov. 9, before reaching about 60 million on Nov. 10. Per Elliptic, roughly 33 million of that last figure sat in an address funded on Nov. 2 that had not moved since.
Halts and refunds complicate the picture
Elliptic said THORChain halted XRP trading on Nov. 7, with swaps stopped for almost a day, and that successful swaps resumed on the afternoon of Nov. 8. On the morning of Nov. 10, it said, XRP swaps appeared halted again, with new deposits refunded.
These interruptions matter because a transfer to a swap route does not necessarily mean a sale. Bitint, as cited by CryptoSlate, put the XRP actually converted at no more than 93.85 million for its defined deposit population after refund corrections, in a reconstruction published Nov. 9. Its Bitcoin settlement ledger was cut off at Nov. 7 and rechecked through Nov. 8.
Elliptic also estimated that a negligible amount had likely been cashed out across the wider laundering operation, because much of the activity changed the asset held while the funds stayed on public blockchains.
Market context and open questions
CryptoSlate noted that XRP is down 24% over the previous 30 days, but said the laundering figures do not establish that the decline resulted from the attacker’s conversions.
Several points remain unclear: the exact amount of XRP actually sold, since wallet transfers alone cannot establish it; whether the swap route is currently halted or open; and the total value stolen and the identity of the attacker, which the source excerpt does not present as confirmed facts.
Sources
- cryptoslate.com CryptoSlate — Binance hacker’s XRP stockpile rapidly crashes driven by Bitcoin swaps Accessed
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