Schwartz: 'Not Considered a Founder' of Ripple, Received XRP Later

In a recent tweet on X, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz shed light on his role at Ripple's inception as well as his $XRP compensation.

Schwartz had shared a screenshot that apparently contained a description of various Ripple participants, including the $XRP they were gifted at the company's inception.

A participant labeled "cryptographer 1" was described as "a Californian resident who served as Ripple's chief cryptographer until July 2018 and is currently Ripple's chief technology officer."

Reacting to this, Schwartz said: "These are pretty funny. I'm actually wearing a cryptographer-1 shirt right now." — David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz (@JoelKatz) June 2, 2026

An X user then asked Schwartz why the other two founders' $XRP compensation was disclosed while his was left out. Schwartz responded: "I'm not generally considered a founder of Ripple and did not receive any $XRP as compensation until much, much later."

$XRP Ledger and Ripple history: In 2011, three engineers — David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto — set out to develop the $XRP Ledger. Fascinated by Bitcoin, they intended to build a better version that improved on its limitations, with the aim of creating a digital asset more sustainable and built specifically for payments.

The $XRP Ledger first launched in June 2012. Shortly thereafter, Chris Larsen joined the group, and they started the company NewCoin in September 2012 (quickly renamed OpenCoin and now Ripple).

Ripple's Cryptographer 1? While acknowledged as one of the original architects of the $XRP Ledger, the same can't be said for Ripple itself, as Schwartz suggests he is generally not regarded as a founder. Schwartz was part of the team that began Ripple, but not as a founder; he also did not receive $XRP at the start, only much later.

"I'm not generally considered a founder of Ripple and did not receive any $XRP as compensation until much, much later," Schwartz stated. He originally joined Ripple (then OpenCoin) as Chief Cryptographer before becoming Chief Technology Officer in 2018.

In late 2025, Schwartz stepped down from the CTO role and transitioned to CTO Emeritus.