According to U.Today, Ripple's Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, has recently addressed speculation about his personal wealth, stating that he is not a billionaire. Known for his transparency and community engagement, Schwartz debunked myths about his wealth by sharing a screenshot of a 2021 tweet in which he confirmed that he was not a billionaire, a stance he still maintains.
Despite his significant contributions to Ripple and the broader XRP Ledger ecosystem, Schwartz's statement underscores the fact that not all industry pioneers have accumulated vast wealth. Schwartz was one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger. In 2011, Schwartz, along with engineers Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto, who had previously written code for the Bitcoin blockchain, began developing the XRP Ledger. Their goal was to create a blockchain that was more suitable for hyper-efficient value movement, focusing on transaction speed and scalability.
Upon the deployment of the XRP Ledger, the code automatically generated 100 billion XRP, with the code base stipulating that no new XRP be created. In September 2012, Arthur Britto, Jed McCaleb, and Chris Larsen founded Ripple, then known as NewCoin, and the founders of the XRP Ledger donated 80 billion XRP to the company. Britto, McCaleb, and Larsen collectively received 20 billion XRP.
Interestingly, Schwartz chose a salary and a 2% share in Ripple over the XRP cryptocurrency, which he helped create. He later admitted 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 significant amount at the peak of XRP's rally. Schwartz attributed his decision to his inherent risk aversion, although he expressed a wish to be less so. Given 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.
