25 May, 2026
2 minutes
Ripple (XRP) belongs to the first-generation cryptocurrencies that have managed to maintain their relevance in the market. It has a history preceding even that of Ethereum, predating DeFi, and emerging when blockchain was primarily associated with mining, rather than smart contracts, stablecoins, and tokenization.
So, when was XRP invented? This crypto asset was invented at the same time as the XRP Ledger, which went live in June 2012. Work on the ledger began in 2011, when David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto developed an idea for an alternative to Bitcoin's mining-driven system. What they intended to create was a blockchain-based platform for instant transfers of value based on a payment-oriented network that does not require any costly proof-of-work algorithm.
However, many users tend to confuse the history of XRP with the history of Ripple, the firm formed later around this technology. It is important to distinguish XRP, XRP Ledger, and Ripple to understand the origin of the cryptocurrency better.
XRP is an acronym for the cryptocurrency introduced in 2012 as the native token of the XRP Ledger. The creation of the ledger took place in June 2012 following a year's development process, and the founders of this project were looking into creating a payment system based on blockchain technology but which did not require Bitcoin's proof-of-work.
This distinction is important since XRP was not created as a company product by Ripple. First came the XRP Ledger. Just months after its introduction, Chris Larsen joined the team of founders to create a company initially known as NewCoin then OpenCoin, and finally Ripple. The founders had transferred 80 billion XRP to the company.
XRP had a completely distinct supply system compared to Bitcoin. Instead of minting more coins through mining operations, the XRP Ledger went live having already minted its total supply of 100 billion XRP tokens upfront. No more XRP can be produced after the initial quantity of 100 billion has been mined.
In essence, here is a brief overview of the timeline:
2011: XRP Ledger development started.
June 2012: XRP Ledger went online, and XRP existed as its native token.
September 2012: The firm now known as Ripple was founded.
After the launch of the project: 80 billion XRP tokens were transferred to the firm to facilitate the creation of use cases for the blockchain network.
Due to the fact that both the terms "XRP" and "Ripple" have been associated in the past, people tend to believe that they are one and the same thing. However, this assumption is not entirely true. XRP is a digital currency, XRP Ledger is its network, and Ripple is the tech company that developed the product.
However, the XRP story was far from being finished after the creation of the ledger or its first application by Ripple. Eventually, the ledger became a backbone to multiple use cases including digital assets management, decentralized exchanges, tokenization, and liquidity management.
Development of the XRP Ledger started in 2011 with David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto as key members. The ledger went live in June 2012 with XRP as the native asset on the ledger with the total supply of 100 billion tokens.
Later in 2012, Ripple was founded as an organization working on commercial projects using the ledger technology.
In December 2017, Ripple put 55 billion XRP into cryptographically secure escrow accounts. The move was aimed to increase predictability of XRP releases in case of selling the token as the number of tokens that can be released during any period of time became limited.
October 2022 became known for the launch of the natively supported NFTs with the XLS-20 standard on XRP Ledger. Now, it is possible to mint, manage, and transfer NFTs within XRPL without resorting to an additional smart contract layer built externally.
The innovation opened the door for XRPL to be applied in collectibles, digital ownership, credentials, tokens, and other similar use cases.
Finally, in March 2024, the XLS-30 amendment brought native AMM functionality to XRP Ledger. Thus, besides order book-based decentralized exchange, users got access to pools for liquidity provision.
There were three key creators of XRP who were responsible for its development and introduction - David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto. It happened back in 2011 when they began developing the framework that would later become known as XRP Ledger. These people raised one specific technical question, which served as their foundation: can a value transfer network process payments effectively without using the Bitcoin-proof of work mechanism?
Bitcoin itself was already working at this point proving the idea of decentralization as a payment method that does not require any financial intermediaries. However, due to its mining nature, it was not very effective for payments since it needed much computing power. That is why XRP team decided to go another way.
The other person who plays an instrumental role in designing the XRP Ledger is David Schwartz. He is a well-known chief technology officer at Ripple. His technical expertise played a significant role in designing the XRP Ledger's consensus algorithm.
While proof-of-work blockchains rely on mining as a competitive process, the XRP Ledger utilizes consensus to validate transactions. It allowed it to validate transactions rapidly without burning energy continuously. Since then, David Schwartz has continued to be a prominent voice explaining the XRP Ledger and XRP.
He is responsible for the conception of the project. In addition to his connection with XRP, McCaleb was recognized in the early cryptocurrency community because of the role he played in creating Mt. Gox, which started out as a trading card website but then moved on to be a Bitcoin exchange under different management.
McCaleb's idea for a blockchain network where no mining is required to transfer digital value led directly to the development of the XRP Ledger, which he helped build and subsequently co-founded along with other investors.
Arthur Britto is the third member of the group behind the creation of XRP and the XRP Ledger. While he has always been much more reclusive than both Schwartz and McCaleb, he is still considered one of the developers who first developed this blockchain project back in 2011.
Britto took part in the development of the network's architecture and played a role in the development of the business structure that emerged around this particular network and its native cryptocurrency. His relative silence on the matter may often have caused confusion, yet he was still one of the creators of XRP.
While it is common to list Chris Larsen among those people who created XRP, the truth is that he was not among the three original creators of the network and its native token. After the creation of the network and XRP itself, Larsen teamed up with McCaleb and Britto to form the organization called NewCoin, then OpenCoin, and finally Ripple. The creators of XRP transferred 80 billion coins of their cryptocurrency to the new corporation.
XRP was created since its creators realized there was a need for something else to be done. The Bitcoin payment system came with an alternative solution where it offered an electronic asset that didn't rely on any banks or central payment operators. But the fact that it was based on the proof-of-work algorithm meant that the transaction would take too long compared to daily or international payments.
In creating the XRPL, the concept of consensus among validators was used instead of miners competing for the rewards offered by the blockchain. Transactions on this platform wouldn't have to be processed using computing resources but through agreement. This was made possible since XRP transactions would only take a few seconds to complete without any mining at all.
At the same time, XRP was originally designed in connection with payments. In contrast to Bitcoin, in which the reward for miners for confirming blocks is paid in newly created cryptocurrency, XRP existed since the very creation of the blockchain. Thus, XRP did not require any incentive mechanism in order to process transactions.
This approach allowed achieving certain goals:
transaction confirmation at high speed
minimization of transaction fees
less energy consumption than proof-of-work networks
transfer of assets of different types
The XRP Ledger did not limit itself solely to transferring the native currency. The architecture of XRP allowed working with different assets and currencies that were issued within this blockchain. In such a case, XRP could act as an intermediary currency, in absence of direct exchange between currencies.
The decentralised exchange was another component of the early design of the XRP Ledger. The ability to create offers and perform trades through the ledger was available from inception, which elevated the XRPL to being more than just a tool to move XRP around.
The pairing of payment settlement features with trading capabilities addressed the challenge that was at hand: moving value between individuals without having to go through a series of intermediaries which were costly and inefficient.
XRP was launched on June 3, 2012, as the point when it officially transitioned into being a digital asset from just another technological project. At this point, David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto already had created the code of their own blockchain, along with its own native currency, which initially had the nickname of "ripples" but was later widely recognized by its currency code XRP.
Another distinguishing factor about XRP was determined from the very start of the cryptocurrency development. Unlike many other currencies where mining plays the key role in the process of issuing new coins, XRP was designed with a predetermined number of units: the total amount of XRP was set at 100 billion from the very start.
As for validators of XRP, they play a different role in the system. They provide the confirmation of transactions performed in the ledger but receive no new XRP for it.
Once the XRP Ledger was up and running, the founders decided on how to distribute the token in such a manner that the future growth of XRP would be affected.
The founders were left with 20 billion XRP tokens, while 80 billion XRP tokens were sent to the company which later became Ripple. The name of the company at that time was NewCoin, and soon after it was renamed to OpenCoin. The main objective of the company was to find commercial applications of the ledger and its native token, especially in the sphere of payment systems.
Another reason why Ripple and XRP stayed close to each other was that Ripple had been created not as the issuer of the token, but as its recipient.
It wasn't by accident that the absence of mining became a part of the XRP Ledger's structure. With Bitcoin, the miners compete with one another in solving complex calculations, adding blocks into the chain and getting new coins as a reward for their services. The role of validators in the XRP Ledger differs significantly from that of Bitcoin's miners because they are not rewarded with newly issued coins for their efforts.
XRP and Ripple have similarities, yet each has a separate history. First, the XRP Ledger came into operation in 2012. At that time, XRP functioned as the native currency of the ledger. In addition, the developers started developing the company alongside Chris Larsen for business-oriented use of the network.
Name Evolution from NewCoin to Ripple
These were some of the names the company has had since its inception:
NewCoin. Original company name from 2012
OpenCoin. Name chosen by the company soon after
Ripple Labs. Name chosen by the company after that
Ripple. Shortened name currently in use
The XRP Ledger creators donated 80 billion XRP to the company.
Ripple concentrated on the improvement of international financial system infrastructure for financial institutions and payment processors. Under this approach, the XRP coin could act as a bridge asset that allows for moving value from one currency market to another without the need for liquidity being available in advance in all destinations.
Such an approach made Ripple a key player in the history of XRP coin. Yet, the distinction between the three entities is crucial:
XRP is a cryptocurrency asset.
XRP Ledger is a decentralized ledger platform.
Ripple is a corporation creating infrastructure on blockchain technology.
The XRP token does not stand for any shares in Ripple, and the XRP Ledger can be used not only by Ripple for different applications but by other organizations as well.
XRP was first released in 2012 as a digital asset of the XRP Ledger. The development of the XRP network started in 2011, and the network itself was released in June of 2012. XRP is considered an asset that allows moving value around in a network without having to use Bitcoin-like mining process.
The creators of both XRP and the XRP Ledger include Arthur Britto, Jed McCaleb, and David Schwartz. Shortly after the launch of the network, another person called Chris Larsen joined the team and founded a company that became known as Ripple later on. It is important to remember that XRP and the XRP Ledger existed long before Ripple came into existence.
No. It is important to remember that XRP and XRP Ledger predated the establishment of Ripple. Once the Ledger was launched, the creators of the network transferred 80 billion XRPs to the organization called NewCoin, and which soon after became OpenCoin, and which became Ripple.
The total number of XRP generated upon the launch of the XRP Ledger amounts to 100 billion. XRP is not mined like Bitcoin. Also, the XRP Ledger does not generate additional coins as rewards to validators. Rather, only a negligible amount of XRP gets burned because of transaction fees.
The total number of XRP generated upon the launch of the XRP Ledger amounts to 100 billion. XRP is not mined like Bitcoin. Also, the XRP Ledger does not generate additional coins as rewards to validators. Rather, only a negligible amount of XRP gets burned because of transaction fees.
