Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz Mocks Binance Hack With Stellar (XLM) Joke

Summary

Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz mocked Stellar (XLM) while reacting to the massive Binance hack that reportedly affected several cryptocurrencies. His sarcastic response followed complaints about stolen funds, bringing Ripple’s longstanding rivalry with Stellar into the exchange’s security crisis.

According to an X conversation involving Schwartz and EasyA co-founder Dom Kwok, the exchange began with complaints about compromised cryptocurrency balances. Kwok reported that hackers had emptied the affected holdings while leaving Litecoin untouched.

Schwartz responded with a joke suggesting the attackers had deposited unwanted Stellar tokens into a Binance account.

“These sick bastards dropped an extra 517 XLM into my Binance account!” Schwartz wrote.

The comment referenced Stellar, a blockchain network founded by Jed McCaleb, who previously helped establish Ripple. McCaleb’s departure from Ripple preceded Stellar’s creation, establishing a historical rivalry between the two blockchain ecosystems. Schwartz’s remarks drew attention to that rivalry as reports emerged about substantial cryptocurrency losses involving Binance.

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Binance Hack Exposes $296 Million in XRP as Ripple Blocks Stolen RLUSD

Beyond Schwartz’s remarks, the reported Binance breach caused significant losses in assets tied to Ripple’s blockchain ecosystem. Attackers reportedly withdrew approximately 233.46 million XRP from Binance hot wallets, representing nearly $296 million at the reported valuation.

Meanwhile, Ripple identified suspicious movements involving its RLUSD stablecoin and restricted addresses associated with the stolen assets. Ripple Senior Vice President Jack McDonald confirmed that the company detected the affected RLUSD holdings and blocked the attackers’ addresses.

Binance co-founder Yi He later thanked Ripple for helping freeze about $200 million in RLUSD linked to the incident. The intervention demonstrated differences between XRP and RLUSD regarding the mechanisms available to restrict transactions involving compromised cryptocurrency holdings.

Unlike RLUSD, XRP does not support issuer-controlled freezing of its native cryptocurrency through the XRP Ledger protocol. As a result, Ripple’s intervention targeted the stolen RLUSD holdings rather than the XRP tokens withdrawn during the breach.

Binance Freezes $3 Billion as Investigators Link Massive Hack to Lazarus

Reports estimated the broader Binance exploit at between $6.3 billion and $6.36 billion across ten blockchain networks. Additionally, Binance and its partners reportedly froze approximately $3 billion in stolen cryptocurrency through coordinated measures across several ecosystems.

Blockchain investigators also linked the attack to TraderTraitor, a hacking operation associated with North Korea’s Lazarus group. The reported freezing measures formed part of Binance’s response to the breach, alongside efforts to safeguard affected customer assets.

Meanwhile, Schwartz’s Stellar joke attracted interest because Ripple’s own cryptocurrency ecosystem suffered substantial losses during the reported attack. The former Ripple executive’s remarks also highlighted the historical rivalry between XRP and XLM amid the exchange’s security problems.

Ripple’s intervention ultimately helped restrict access to stolen RLUSD, while Schwartz’s sarcastic response added another dimension to the Binance incident.

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