Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has forcefully rejected recurring rumors that Ryan Fugger created XRP, reaffirming that the cryptocurrency's true origin is 2012. He stated that any attempt to trace a 'hidden founder' to earlier years lacks technical and historical basis.
RipplePay Was a Plain Payment System, No Blockchain
The debate centers on Fugger's 2004 RipplePay system, launched five years before Bitcoin. Its similar name led some to wrongly credit Fugger as XRP's founder. Schwartz emphasized RipplePay was a conventional trust-based payment network with neither a blockchain foundation nor a digital coin. XRP's technical underpinnings only emerged in 2012, after Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb acquired the platform from Fugger.
Code Rewritten From Scratch, Brand Name Retained
Schwartz explained that the team—later known as OpenCoin and eventually Ripple Labs—bought RipplePay primarily for its brand and memorable name, not its technology. Jed McCaleb, Arthur Britto, and David Schwartz wrote entirely new code to develop the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and XRP token. Only the name survived from the original system.
Old Patents Spark Conspiracy Theories, Schwartz Dismisses Them
Some theories cited Schwartz's distributed computing patent applications from 1988–1991, speculating he could be Satoshi Nakamoto or even that XRP was secretly developed under US government influence. Schwartz rejected these interpretations, calling the patents technologically outdated and unrelated to XRPL's modern architecture. 'Linking my old patents or Fugger's project to XRP’s birth fits available facts into appealing narratives,' he said.
With this clarification, Schwartz reaffirmed XRP's origin in 2012, based on new code and a completely reimagined structure. Earlier founding claims are historical curiosities, not valid technical arguments.