A supposed transaction of nearly $15 billion worth of XRP (XRP) from an unknown wallet to Bitfinex on Jan. 14 never went through, and it was part of a failed “partial payments exploit” attempt, according to Bitfinex chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino.
The transfer was initially highlighted by blockchain tracking X (formerly Twitter) account Whale Alert, which claimed to see a transaction of 25.6 billion XRP — nearly half of XRP’s billion circulating supply — from an unknown wallet to Bitfinex.
However, Whale Alert later deleted the post and said there was “an issue with properly reading the Ripple node response, resulting in a few wrong posts.”
Ardoino then explained on X that “someone attempted to attack” Bitfinex through a “Partial Payments Exploit,” with the would-be attacker anticipating the exchange had incorrectly configured its software to process partial payments.
Someone attempted to attack @bitfinex via "Partial Payments Exploit".
— Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) January 14, 2024
Attack failed since Bitfinex properly handles 'delivered_amount' data field.https://t.co/EiGw9UQmmq
(updated with better gif) https://t.co/8I7vlO05ou pic.twitter.com/DxOnJLLkhU
A partial payments exploit works by assuming a company has an improperly configured system that only reads the amount field of an XRP transaction, which is set to a high amount.
Related: Hong Kong Virtual Asset Consortium removes XRP from global crypto index
In reality, the exploiter sends over a much smaller amount specified in another transaction field and aims to receive credit for the difference.
Ardoino, however, noted the attack failed as “Bitfinex properly handles the ‘delivered_amount’ data field.
According to blockchain data, the attacker also tried an attack on Binance with a 58.9 billion XRP transfer, which similarly failed.
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