Debunking the Myth: The True Origins of XRP

David Schwartz, the Ripple CTO Emeritus, has officially clarified the history of the XRP token, refuting long-standing rumors about its creation. By addressing the role of Ryan Fugger and his 2004 RipplePay project, Schwartz has set the record straight on the timeline of the cryptocurrency's architecture.

From Brand Acquisition to Code Creation

Schwartz explained that Ryan Fugger’s original project was a payment system based on mutual trust, which lacked both blockchain and digital coins. The modern history of XRP only began in 2012 when the OpenCoin team acquired the RipplePay brand and replaced its technical core entirely. Engineers Jed McCaleb, Arthur Britto, and David Schwartz wrote the XRP Ledger code from scratch, making it a distinct entity from Fugger’s earlier work.

Countering Conspiracy Theories

The statement also addressed rumors linking Schwartz’s 1980s patents for distributed computing to a secret government agenda or Satoshi Nakamoto. Schwartz dismissed these claims, noting that his archival work is technologically outdated and unrelated to the modern XRP Ledger architecture. He concluded that any attempts to find "secret creators" before 2012 are simply efforts to fit technical facts into attractive conspiracy theories.