XRP holders are being warned about a new pattern of risk: unverified decentralized applications (dApps) that ask users to enter their private keys in order to connect. The alert was raised by the chief operating officer of XRPL Labs, a development company known for building on the XRP Ledger, according to a COINOTAG report published on October 7, 2026.

A private key is the cryptographic credential that grants full control over a crypto wallet. Anyone who obtains it can move the funds it protects without any approval from the owner. For that reason, established security practice across the industry holds that no legitimate wallet, exchange, or application ever needs a user's private key to complete a sign-in or a connection request — a point the XRPL Labs COO's warning reinforces. In standard wallet architecture, connection and sign-in requests are authorized by signing transactions locally within the wallet, while the key itself remains stored on the user's device.

XRPL Labs is the company behind the Xaman wallet for the XRP Ledger (formerly known as Xumm). Its products follow a self-custody model, in which users keep sole control of their own keys, meaning responsibility for safeguarding those credentials rests with holders themselves. That model is also what gives the warning its weight: because ledger transactions are final once confirmed, there is no intermediary to reverse a transfer carried out with an exposed key.

The report also noted that the XRP price slipped 5.1% over the past 24 hours, while emphasizing that the risk in this case sits away from the chart — in how keys are handled.

The central message of the warning is unambiguous: private keys must never be shared, and XRP holders should be wary of any dApp that requests key entry as a condition of connecting. Standard industry hygiene points the same direction — verifying an application's legitimacy through official channels before connecting.

Source: COINOTAG