Ripple says security incident accelerated its acquisition of Fortress Trust
The takeover of Fortress Trust by financial technology company Ripple on Sept. 8 involved more than just an acquisition deal. The transaction was accelerated by a security incident hours earlier involving a Fortress third-party analytics vendor, Ripple confirmed to Cointelegraph.
According to a representative from Ripple, discussions between the companies intensified last week after cloud tools of a third-party analytics vendor were compromised. In an interview with Fortune, Fortress CEO Scott Purcell said the company lost $12 million to $15 million in the incident. A majority of the funds were Bitcoin (BTC), along with small amounts of USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT).
Ripple, an investor in Fortress since its seed round in 2022, had to step in to make customers whole:
Related: Ripple acquires Fortress Trust, expands license portfolio in the US
The incident stirred controversy across the crypto community. BitGo CEO Mike Belshe stated on X (formerly Twitter) that “Fortress was not forthcoming about what actually did happen," claiming the company chose to “omit facts” and “downplay the event” by saying no funds were stolen. Fortress uses BitGo to custody part of its assets. BitGo said assets under its custody had not been affected.
Fortress co-founder Kevin Lehtiniitty labeled Belshe’s comments as “misleading statements," asserting that BitGo was “fully in the loop from the start." Moreover, he hinted at an acquisition proposal from BitGo to Fortress, saying, “[You] appear to be upset that Scott [Fortress’ CEO] chose to go with Ripple instead of the deal you proposed."
Mike, without breaking the terms of our NDA, you 1/ were fully in the loop from the start 2/ appear to be upset that Scott chose to go with Ripple
Read more on cointelegraph.com
