Ripple CTO Ends Speculation on XRP Ledger’s Bitcoin Semblance

Ripple CTO David Schwartz has reacted to ongoing speculation that XRP is just Bitcoin, save for a few differences.

The discussion on X (formerly Twitter) started after a user claimed that XRP was simply a copy of Bitcoin with a few tweaks.

The X user “Scams are Bad5” claims to have spotted the MIT license document somewhere in the XRP source and so came to this conclusion, according to Kevin Smith, who went on to query the Ripple CTO on the rationale behind including the Bitcoin license in the XRP source.

The tweet caught the attention of Ripple CTO David Schwartz, who replied by explaining the genesis of the XRP Ledger and where things currently stand.

XRP Ledger (XRPL) was initially developed in 2011 by three engineers: David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto.

Intrigued by Bitcoin, they set out to create a better version that addressed its flaws and established a more sustainable digital asset designed exclusively for payments.

In response to the X user’s conjecture, the CTO of Ripple indicated that XRPL began in 2011 as a copy of Bitcoin core, but things changed as time went on. This is because XRPL took on a new form and essentially relinquished some of its Bitcoin semblance.

Schwartz claims that by the middle of 2012, the address format and the copyright notice were essentially all that was left.

The question of whether XRPL is still employing SHA256, RIPEMD160 and Base58 for addresses came up as the talk went on. In response, Schwartz said that he believed addresses were still being operated similarly to Bitcoin at first.

In a positive development, Uphold cryptocurrency exchange has reported on Ripple’s noteworthy accomplishment of being named an official partner of the “cross-border payments interoperability and extension taskforce,” a division of the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).