David Schwartz, the founding architect of the XRP Ledger who now holds the title of chief technology officer emeritus at Ripple, has publicly answered critics who hold him responsible for the token's prolonged slump, conceding he may bear some blame but insisting his influence is negligible.
The exchange played out on X, where a user pressed Schwartz on whether he could honestly claim no hand in XRP's market performance. His reply was careful: he said it would be hard to maintain that he has nothing at all to do with the price, but that his effect on it is very limited.
The pushback comes as XRP holders grow increasingly restive. According to CoinMarketCap data cited in market coverage, the token has lost roughly half its value over the past year. Brief rallies punctuated the stretch, but the dominant direction has been lower. The pattern is not unique to XRP: Stellar (XLM), another payments-focused asset, traced a similar path over the same period.
Schwartz has also moved to police the conversation around him. He said a growing number of accounts now trail him into threads unrelated to crypto in order to call him a fraud or air grievances about his work on XRP. In response, he has begun blocking offenders, and he said the policy cuts both ways: supporters who inject promotional XRP posts into off-topic discussions face the same treatment as detractors.
Reasoned criticism remains welcome, according to Schwartz, provided it is substantive, free of personal insults and relevant to the subject at hand. He has offered to lift blocks for anyone who commits to stopping the disruptions, stressing that he holds no personal animosity. Community members have floated ideas such as a weekly thread for newcomers to the XRP ecosystem, a suggestion he backed as a more productive outlet.
His remarks followed criticism aimed at both him and Ripple chief executive Brad Garlinghouse, and they land amid a fresh leg down in the token's price.
XRP changed hands near $1.17, down about 2.4% over 24 hours and roughly 24.5% below its October high of $1.55, according to CoinGlass. The data provider counted about $10.7 million in XRP futures liquidations over the preceding day, with open interest near $2.76 billion. Open interest fell 12.36% as the price broke through the $1.21 support zone, a sign that traders are paring leveraged exposure, though the metric does not distinguish between long and short positioning. Social sentiment for XRP has also slipped to its weakest level since July.
Exchange-traded funds tied to XRP have kept pulling in money even as spot prices fell. The funds logged net inflows on six of the past month's trading sessions, and cumulative inflows stand at $1.81 billion.
Chart watchers are mapping the levels that matter. Analyst ChartNerd identified meaningful demand between $1.04 and $1.16 following the break below weekly support, and said a reclaim of $1.34 would brighten the technical picture. The token now trades under its 20-week and 50-week moving averages, which have flipped into resistance after the loss of 10-week support. Ali Martinez flagged $0.99 as a possible floor, pointing to thin trading volume and a shrinking market share as obstacles to any durable recovery, and noting that Bitcoin's dominance continues to weigh on altcoins. Dark Defender, by contrast, argued that XRP's longer-term structure is intact, with $1.12 -- a ceiling in July and August -- now the support that must hold for a rebound to take shape.
Schwartz's own status at Ripple has been a recurring source of speculation. He stepped back from day-to-day duties at the end of 2025 but remains on the company's board and keeps the emeritus CTO title. He has said he meets with his former team twice a month, providing strategic input without operational control -- an arrangement that keeps him formally tied to the company whose ledger he helped design.
For investors, the dispute matters less for what it says about one executive than for what it reveals about sentiment in a community that has watched a year of declines. Derivatives positioning suggests deleveraging rather than capitulation, and the ETF flow data points to institutional buyers treating weakness as an entry point. The near-term question is whether $1.12 to $1.16 holds; a break opens the path toward the $0.99 area that Martinez has identified, while a move back above $1.34 would ease pressure on the chart.
