David Schwartz Says Risk Aversion Drove XRP Sales

David Schwartz says he sold most of his XRP and other cryptocurrency holdings over time because he wanted to limit personal financial risk, not because he had lost confidence in XRP. The former Ripple chief technology officer said his XRP holdings declined from a peak of about 26 million tokens to roughly 3 million, including about 2.5 million XRP sold in 2025.

Schwartz also said he now holds about one bitcoin and six ether, compared with earlier holdings of roughly 1,500 bitcoin and 40,000 ether. The figures and the explanation come from his social-media remarks; a complete record of his transactions was not provided in the reports.

He said his XRP sales followed a personal arrangement with his wife to sell portions when the token reached new highs. Schwartz has described himself as uncomfortable with financial risk and said he has not bought XRP in a long time. He rejected the interpretation that his sales signaled a negative view of the token.

Schwartz said the 2025 XRP sales resulted in about $1.7 million in capital-gains tax. He said most of the XRP sold had been received in 2020 and 2023. He has also described a written process for sales: he arranges them with an attorney...