Ripple’s former Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, has once again discussed his early decision to reduce his cryptocurrency holdings. He said that, in hindsight, he regrets selling XRP and Ethereum at lower prices, but his motivation at the time was to manage risk, not to doubt the cryptocurrency industry.
Sold XRP and ETH at lower levels
On July 20, Schwartz responded to the discussion on X, saying he had made an agreement with his wife to gradually sell a portion of their crypto holdings whenever their family’s crypto assets reached a new high, in order to reduce overall risk exposure. He stated that he has always been highly averse to financial risk, which is why he chose to steadily reduce his position during price rallies.
Schwartz said he began selling when XRP rose to around $0.10, as that price seemed high at the time. He also mentioned that he did not believe there was a high probability of XRP reaching $0.25 back then.
Regarding Ethereum, he previously revealed that he sold 40,000 ETH at approximately $1.05 each. He later stated that if he had believed Ethereum had even a small chance of rising to thousands of dollars that year, he would not have sold at that price.
Your personal crypto exposure has significantly decreased.
In addition to XRP and ETH, he also admitted to selling large amounts of Bitcoin at prices far below subsequent market levels. According to him, all these actions followed the same strategy: prioritizing reduced volatility over betting on maximum long-term gains.
Schwartz previously held a much larger amount of XRP than he does now. Public statements indicate that his XRP holdings once reached approximately 26 million tokens and have since steadily declined. In May of this year, he stated that, aside from his Ripple equity, he had moved a significant portion of his wealth out of crypto assets.
This means he still has financial ties to the digital assets industry, primarily through his Ripple equity rather than through direct holdings of large amounts of tokens. Since he has not fully disclosed his current portfolio, outsiders cannot accurately determine how much XRP, Bitcoin, or Ethereum he still holds.
Continuing to participate in XRP Ledger transactions
Although Schwartz stepped down from his day-to-day role as Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer by the end of 2025 and transitioned to CTO Emeritus, he has not exited the ecosystem. He previously stated that he will continue writing code, operating independent XRP Ledger infrastructure, and researching new applications for XRP.
After entering 2026, he continued to participate in XRPL community affairs. The report noted that in June, he supported the XRP Ledger 3.2.0 upgrade, which included updates to infrastructure and tools related to DeFi, lending, and tokenized assets.
Recently, he has continued to speak out on the legal dispute between XRP and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, emphasizing that the court later distinguished between the tokens themselves and specific sales contexts. This is also part of his recent public discussions on XRP’s pricing, liquidity, and historical statements.