David Schwartz, the former chief technology officer at Ripple and one of the creators of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), has dispelled one of the most common myths regarding the key factors that could impact the price of XRP.
The former Ripple CTO took to the X social media platform to challenge the idea that the use of XRP as the native gas token of the XRP Ledger could be a major factor in determining the price of the cryptocurrency.
“I don’t think anybody who knows anything has said that the use of XRP as gas will be a major driver of the price of XRP,” Schwartz wrote.
The comment was made as the Ripple veteran took part in the ever-growing debate centered around the poor price performance of XRP and the place of the cryptocurrency in Ripple’s ever-expanding ecosystem.
The former Ripple CTO directed the audience’s attention to a post from November 2025, in which he explained his thoughts on how mass adoption of the XRP Ledger could lead to greater value for the ledger’s native cryptocurrency.
“The increased use and adoption of XRPL will add value to XRP by its privileged place on the ledger,” Schwartz said.
He emphasized that XRP has several unique properties, including the lack of counterparty risk, the fact that it’s jurisdictionless, and its privileged place in the network’s autobridging features.
In addition, Schwartz argued that it would be hard to imagine the XRP Ledger succeeding on a mass scale without XRP capturing a significant portion of the value created by such success.
“I really do think it’s hard to think we could end up in a world where XRPL is successful and XRP doesn’t get a good fraction of that value,” he said.
Nevertheless, Schwartz also said earlier that the XRP Ledger was not created with the sole intent of pushing the price of XRP higher. Instead, the original goal was to create a fast and cheap payment system with a native digital asset and a decentralized exchange feature.
Frustration among XRP holders rising
Schwartz’s recent comments come as frustration among XRP holders over the poor performance of the cryptocurrency is on the rise.
As of Monday, the Ripple-related token was trading at around the $1.09 level, down more than 12% in the last seven days.
Recently, Schwartz admitted that his influence on the market price of XRP is very small.
“Do I have anything to do with the price of XRP? Honestly? I guess probably not anything. But very little,” he wrote during another interaction with critics.
