Ripple Can't Freeze Stolen XRP, Exchanges May Be Key to Recovery

A total of $83 million in XRP has been moved from the five wallets initially holding the stolen funds after the Bitget hack. The hack, which occurred on September 24, saw nearly 103 million XRP stolen, with around 54 million of that amount, worth approximately $83 million, leaving those original wallets by September 26.

The difference in how Tether and Circle can freeze their respective stablecoins, but Ripple cannot do the same with XRP, lies in who controls each asset. USDT is issued by Tether, which can blacklist addresses and prevent frozen tokens from moving. In contrast, XRP works differently as it is not issued by Ripple.

When Ripple identifies wallets holding stolen XRP, the company cannot blacklist those addresses or freeze their balances. As a result, attention has shifted towards the infrastructure attackers use to move the funds, with Bitget CEO Gracy Chen calling on THORChain to refuse transactions involving addresses linked to the attacker.