Ripple Labs' chief technology officer emeritus, David Schwartz, has disclosed just how far he has pulled back from digital assets, saying he has sold almost every token he once owned and now holds roughly 3 million XRP, down from a peak of about 26 million.
In a post on X, Schwartz said he has not purchased XRP in a long time and described himself as deeply uncomfortable with risk. "I am very uncomfortable with risk and have sold nearly all of the digital assets I've ever held," he wrote, adding that he still holds a substantial block of Ripple stock, which on its own represents more risk than he would prefer.
The disclosure followed a follower's claim that the Ripple co-founder had sold nearly all his XRP and retained only company equity. Schwartz replied that nothing about the shift was secret and supplied the figures behind it.
Note: Holdings as described by Schwartz in posts on X.
He also put a dollar figure on part of the selling. In a separate post, he said he sold about 2.5 million XRP in 2025, most of which he had received in 2020 and 2023, and paid roughly $1.7 million in capital gains tax on those transactions.
The rationale, by his account, is longstanding. Schwartz said he and his wife agreed he would sell at each new all-time high. He has said he regrets some of those exits, including selling XRP at $0.10 and Ether near $1.05, and that he wishes he were more comfortable with risk. "I wish I was more comfortable with risk, but I'm just not that person," he wrote.
His candor has drawn attention before. In July, he backed chief executive Brad Garlinghouse's account that Ripple came close to collapse after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued the company in December 2020, saying its lawyers had concluded the firm was "done" and "unsavable" and advised executives to settle to protect themselves. Garlinghouse and executive chairman Chris Larsen chose to fight instead.
Schwartz stepped back from the day-to-day CTO role at the end of 2025 but remains active in the XRP Ledger community.
The comments come as XRP holders press Ripple for answers on token performance. XRP traded near $1.06, having lost more than half its value over the past year and fallen 37% from a mid-August high of $1.70, after spot XRP exchange-traded funds recorded $10.42 million in outflows on November 9, according to Coinpedia.
Asked directly on X whether Ripple has an undisclosed roadmap to lift the price, Schwartz was blunt: "I'm not sure what you think we haven't already told you. We talk about our plans constantly. There's no secret plan we aren't telling you about."
He attributed the token's slide mainly to broader market forces rather than company developments, saying the price is "largely dragged around by the market" and that news tied to the XRP Ledger plays a smaller role. He pointed back to a January 2023 post in which he framed that view as a personal impression rather than a provable claim.
On whether XRP needs a higher price to support large payment volumes across the ledger, Schwartz agreed it helps. "The higher the price, the better," he wrote, noting that a higher valuation makes liquidity cheaper and reduces trade slippage. He rejected the idea that XRP's role as a fee-paying asset would itself drive the price, saying no informed observer has made that argument.
Instead, he pointed to XRP's "privileged place on the ledger" as the one asset holders can own without a counterparty. "I really do think it's hard to believe we will end up in a world where XRPL is successful but XRP fails to capture a good fraction of that value," he wrote.
Operationally, Ripple has kept expanding. In late October it received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter, and Moody's assigned its RLUSD stablecoin an investment-grade A2 rating, CCN reported. At the company's Swell event, Garlinghouse dismissed speculation that Ripple is pivoting away from XRP toward RLUSD, describing the two tokens as "complementary, not competitive."
In Europe, Ripple said euro stablecoins have grown from €50 million (approximately $55.5 million) to €450 million (approximately $499.3 million) since early 2024. Qivalis, a group of 37 European banks cleared by the Dutch central bank on October 13, plans to launch a shared euro stablecoin, and Ripple noted that members including BBVA (BBVA) and Germany's DZ BANK already use Ripple Custody, while each bank still needs custody, governance and controls to hold the asset for clients.
For XRP holders, the takeaway from Schwartz's remarks is less a signal about Ripple's roadmap than a reminder of how the token's price has behaved relative to the company's commercial progress. His own portfolio shift, from millions of tokens to a few million, underscores a distinction he drew himself: the equity stake, not the token, is where his residual exposure sits.
