David Schwartz Reveals Who Held 99% of XRP Supply at the XRPL Genesis Block

The Ripple CTO David Schwartz recently revealed the allotment of 99% of the total XRP supply at the XRP Ledger (XRPL) genesis block of 32,570.

Schwartz disclosed this in a recent discussion on X surrounding the XRP Ledger’s history and why its genesis block actually starts at 32,570. An XRP community member raised concerns about this reality, asking if the anomaly exists with other blockchain networks.

The XRPL Anomaly

Notably, the XRPL, being at its early stages in the first week of operation, had some bugs that warranted occasional and consistent fixes.

One of these bugs led to a loss of ledger headers. Despite efforts to fix this, the reconstruction of the ledger could not scale through as a result of data loss.

This issue resulted in the loss of the earlier ledgers. As a result, the XRP Ledger has block 32,570 as its genesis block. However, concerns have emerged regarding the lost data, as some allege that Ripple seeks to hide some information on the XRP distribution scheme.

The discussion resurfaced when an XRP community member resurrected these concerns, highlighting the XRPL’s anomalous genesis block. As The Crypto Basic reported this week, Schwartz noted that this same anomaly also exists on the Ethereum blockchain.

However, he stressed that the issue with the XRPL was genuinely a case of missing data from a bug, and not a deliberate attempt to conceal information on the XRP distribution. To clear this, he then provided information on the allotment of 99% of the XRP supply.

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XRP Balances at the Genesis Block

According to him, while the distribution of Ethereum (ETH) at its genesis block remains unclear, leading to sustained suspicions, there is transparency on the allotment of most of the XRP supply. For context, a former Ethereum developer claims 70% of ETH distribution occurred pre-mine.

To clear the air on XRP’s distribution, Schwartz revealed that Jed McCaleb, Ripple’s former CTO and one of the architects of the XRPL, held 9% of the supply.

It bears mentioning that McCaleb has sold off all his XRP after years of systematic sales following his departure from Ripple. 

In addition, Schwartz noted that Chris Larsen, co-founder and executive chairman of Ripple, also received 9%. However, Arthur Britto, one of the original architects of the XRPL, held 2% of the supply. This translates to 20% held by co-founders.

Recall that Schwartz previously revealed that he preferred to receive Ripple shares instead of XRP, as recently disclosed by The Crypto Basic.

The Ripple CTO further confirmed that Ripple (previously OpenCoin) held 79.99% of the total supply, while beta testers and developers had 0.013%.

Ripple then locked most of its holdings in escrow. The firm unlocks 1 billion XRP from the escrow wallets every month. However, it relocks 800 million tokens shortly after, leaving 200 million as spendable balance. Ripple seeks to reduce its XRP holdings as quickly as possible.

The latest disclosure from Schwartz highlights where over 99% of the XRP supply was held at the genesis block. This was an attempt from the Ripple CTO to debunk any claims of suspicious distribution.