David Schwartz, the former Chief Technology Officer of Ripple, recently explained on X (formerly Twitter) his early involvement with the company and how he was compensated with XRP.
I’ve been looking into a screenshot recently shared by Schwartz. It seems to detail individuals involved with Ripple and, interestingly, the initial XRP allocations they received when the company first started.
Cryptographer 1 is a resident of California who worked as Ripple’s chief cryptographer until July 2018. They are now Ripple’s chief technology officer.
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Responding to the situation, Schwartz joked, “These are quite amusing. In fact, I’m wearing a shirt with ‘cryptographer-1’ on it right now.”
I wasn’t one of the original creators of Ripple, and I didn’t start receiving XRP as payment until quite a while after the company began.
— David ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz (@JoelKatz) June 2, 2026
I recently saw a question on X asking why my XRP compensation wasn’t disclosed alongside the other founders’. My response was that I’m not typically considered a Ripple founder, and I didn’t start receiving XRP as compensation until quite a bit later than they did.
XRP ledger and Ripple history
In 2011, David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto—three engineers—began building the XRP Ledger. Inspired by Bitcoin, they wanted to create a digital currency that was more efficient and better suited for everyday payments, addressing some of Bitcoin’s shortcomings.
The XRP Ledger was first released in June 2012. Chris Larsen joined the project shortly after, and the team began working as NewCoin in September 2012. NewCoin was quickly rebranded as OpenCoin, which is now known as Ripple.
Ripple’s Cryptographer 1?
As an analyst, I’ve often seen confusion around Jed McCaleb’s role. While he’s widely recognized as a key creator of the XRP Ledger’s underlying technology, it’s important to note that he isn’t generally considered a founder of the Ripple company itself, despite what some might assume.
David Schwartz joined the Ripple team early on, but wasn’t one of the original founders. He also didn’t receive XRP tokens initially; he acquired them at a later time.
According to Schwartz, he wasn’t one of the original founders of Ripple and didn’t start receiving XRP as payment until a significant time after the company began.
David Schwartz initially joined Ripple, then called OpenCoin, as their head of cryptography. He later became the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in 2018. In late 2025, he moved into a special advisory role as CTO emeritus.
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2026-06-02 14:27