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Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, recently found himself at the center of speculation about his personal wealth. Amid conjecture about his financial status, Schwartz has stepped forward to clarify that he is not yet a billionaire.
Schwartz, known for his transparency and engagement with the community, addressed the speculation, debunking any myths about his wealth. To back up his claims, the Ripple CTO shared a screenshot of a tweet from 2021 in which he stated that he was not yet a billionaire, reaffirming his current stance.
Despite his significant contributions to Ripple and the broader XRP Ledger ecosystem, Schwartz’s revelation highlights the reality that not all industry pioneers have amassed vast fortunes.
Schwartz was one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger. In 2011, three engineers who had previously written code for the Bitcoin blockchain — David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto — began developing the XRP Ledger to create a blockchain that was more suitable for hyper-efficient value movement, with a focus on transaction speed and scalability.
When the XRP Ledger was deployed shortly after, the code automatically generated 100 billion XRP, with the code base requiring that no new XRP be created.
In September 2012, Arthur Britto, Jed McCaleb and Chris Larsen founded Ripple (then known as NewCoin), and the XRP Ledger’s founders donated 80 billion XRP to the company. Arthur Britto, Jed McCaleb and Chris Larsen together received 20 billion XRP.
Ironically, at the time, Schwartz chose a salary and a 2% share in Ripple over the XRP cryptocurrency, which he helped create. Although he later highlighted that choosing a share in the company over XRP was probably a “pretty big” mistake: he could have received around 500 million XRP tokens, which would have been worth a fortune at the peak of XRP’s rally.
Schwartz cited the probable reason for his decision as that he is just inherently risk averse, although he wishes he were less so.
With Ripple’s current worth and XRP’s market capitalization of $28.46 billion, Schwartz’s net worth might be estimated to be in the millions.
