A man built one of Bitcoin’s earliest exchanges, helped create XRP, left the company behind it, and went on to build a rival blockchain. – In 2000, Jed McCaleb created eDonkey2000, a peer-to-peer file-sharing network. – Years later, he discovered Bitcoin and realised there was no easy way for people to buy and sell it. – In 2010, he turned the Mt. Gox website into a Bitcoin exchange. – It grew into the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, handling the majority of Bitcoin trading at its peak. – In 2011, Jed sold Mt. Gox to Mark Karpelès and moved on to another project. – That same year, he began working with David Schwartz and Arthur Britto on the XRP Ledger, a blockchain designed to support fast digital payments. – The XRP Ledger launched in 2012, and Jed became a co-founder of the company that eventually became Ripple. – But disagreements with the other founders led him to leave Ripple in 2013. – Most people would have moved on to something completely different. – Jed took what he had learned and helped launch Stellar in 2014, another blockchain focused on payments that would compete with Ripple. – Meanwhile, Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014 after losing hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin. Jed had sold the exchange years earlier and was no longer running it. – He continued building Stellar while the exchange he once owned became one of crypto’s biggest cautionary tales. – He also held a substantial XRP allocation from his role as a co-founder and spent years selling it. By 2022, he had sold his remaining XRP. – Today, Jed McCaleb is known for helping build three major parts of crypto’s history: Mt. Gox, Ripple and Stellar. A man helped build one of crypto’s biggest exchanges, co-founded XRP, and then created a rival to the company he helped start.