Bitget Hacker Moves $83 Million in Stolen XRP Through Multiple Wallets

WHY IT MATTERS

This story illustrates an important concept in cryptocurrency: the difference between centralized control and decentralized design. Think of a traditional bank — if someone steals money from your account, the bank can freeze the thief's account and potentially reverse the transaction. On many blockchains, however, no single company or person has that power over the native currency. In this case, even though Ripple is closely associated with XRP, the report states that Ripple cannot freeze native XRP tokens once they are sent. This is a core feature of how many cryptocurrencies work — transactions are generally irreversible and not controlled by any single entity. For beginners, this highlights why security at the exchange level (where you store your crypto) is so important, because once funds are stolen and moved on-chain, recovering them can be extremely difficult or impossible.