Bitfinex Thwarts $15 Billion XRP Attack

The XRP attack failed as Bitfinex correctly handled the ‘delivered_amount’ data field during anticipated $15 Billion XRP transaction.

Based on the information provided by Paolo Ardoino, the chief technology officer of Bitfinex, a transaction that was expected to take place on January 14 and included almost $15 billion worth of XRP from an unknown wallet to Bitfinex did not take place because of a XRP attack.

This transaction was part of an unsuccessful attempt to exploit a “partial payments exploit.” The blockchain tracking X (formerly known as Twitter) account known as Whale Alert initially brought the transfer to light.

This account asserted that it witnessed a transaction involving 25.6 billion XRP, which is approximately half of the total quantity of XRP that is currently in circulation, from an unknown wallet to Bitfinex.

Whale Alert, on the other hand, removed the message at a later time and explained that there was “an issue with properly reading the Ripple node response, resulting in a few wrong posts.”

Afterward, Ardoino said on X that “someone attempted to a XRP attack” Bitfinex by utilizing a “partial payments exploit.” The would-be attacker was under the impression that the exchange had erroneously configured its software to process partial payments.

The assumption that a corporation has an inadequately designed system that only reads the amount field of an XRP transaction, which is set to a high amount, is the basis for the operation of a partial payment exploit.

In actuality, the exploiter of the XRP attack sends over a far lesser amount to receive credit for the difference between the two amounts that were indicated in another transaction field.

On the other side, Ardoino observed that the attack was unsuccessful because “Bitfinex handles the ‘delivered_amount’ data field properly.”

The data from the blockchain indicates that the attacker also attempted to launch an attack on Binance by transferring 58.9 billion XRP, but unfortunately, this attempt was unsuccessful.