 
 
Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, announced plans to “step back from [his] day-to-day duties” after more than a decade at the company.
Schwartz, one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger, announced in a Tuesday X post that he would be scaling back his responsibilities at Ripple after roughly 13 years at the blockchain firm.
“The time has come for me to step back from my day-to-day duties as Ripple CTO at the end of this year,” he wrote. Describing his time with Ripple as “a wild ride,” Schwartz indicated that the decision will allow him to spend more time with family while remaining active in the XRP community.
“But be warned, I’m not going away from the XRP community. You haven’t seen the last of me—now or ever.”
Schwartz Isn’t Cutting Ties Completely
After consulting for the NSA, Schwartz joined Ripple in 2011 as a cryptographer, helping design the ledger that underpins XRP transactions. He climbed the ranks to become the CTO in 2018, and has since become one of the most recognizable voices in the XRP community, defending the ledger’s role against critics and guiding its evolution through regulatory battles and technical upgrades.
 
He will remain at Ripple as “CTO emeritus” — referring to an honorary title — and join the company’s board of directors.
“The last few months I’ve been tinkering on the side – spinning up my own XRPL node and publishing its output data, researching other use cases for XRP (besides what Ripple is focused on), and more,” he posted. “I truly enjoy this part — getting my hands dirty, talking to builders, coding for the pure love of it — and I’m really excited to get back to that. More to come on this very soon, I’m sure.”
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated on X that Schwartz was a “true OG in crypto,” touting the move. “I’m glad you won’t be far as you join the Ripple board, continuing to impart your deep crypto wisdom and guidance on what we’re building,” Garlinghouse added. A Ripple spokesperson confirmed that Dennis Jarosch, the firm’s senior vice president of engineering, will lead the technical team going forward.
The leadership change comes as Ripple positions its dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD deeper into tokenized treasury markets and boosts the XRP Ledger’s use cases beyond international payments.
Data from the crypto data provider CoinGecko shows that the price of
XRP surged roughly 3.4% from $2.82 to $2.95 in the hours after Schwartz’s announcement. The cross-border payments token smashed its current all-time high price of $3.65 on July 18, 2025.