Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has admitted that he regrets selling some of his early XRP and Ethereum holdings, while explaining that risk management drove the decisions rather than a loss of confidence in cryptocurrency.
Summary
- David Schwartz says risk aversion drove early XRP and Ethereum sales despite later price gains.
- Schwartz followed a family agreement to sell at new highs, reducing long-term crypto exposure substantially.
- The XRP Ledger co-creator once held about 26 million XRP before steadily cutting holdings down.
Schwartz addressed the sales in a July 20 post on X after another user raised his history of selling XRP at $0.10 and Ethereum near $1. “Obviously, I wish I hadnt done those things,” he said.
However, he added that he had agreed with his wife to reduce exposure whenever his holdings reached new highs because he strongly disliked financial risk.
Obviously, I wish I hadn't done those things. But I agreed with my wife to sell at every new ATH and I really, really hate risk. I wish I was more comfortable with risk, but I'm just not that person.
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Risk aversion drove Schwartzs early crypto sales
Schwartz has discussed his early exits several times in recent months. In January, he said he started selling XRP when the token reached $0.10 because that price appeared extremely high at the time. He also recalled believing that XRP reaching $0.25 was unlikely, showing how different market expectations were during the assets early years.
His Ethereum sale followed a similar pattern. Schwartz has previously said he sold 40,000 ETH at about $1.05 each. In May, he explained that he would have held the tokens if he had believed there was even a small chance that Ethereum could later reach thousands of dollars.
“If I had thought there was a 1% chance of it hitting $2,368, I would not have sold it for $1.05,” he wrote.
If I had thought there was a 1% chance of it hitting $2,368, I would not have sold it for $1.05. I'm still not sure the odds of that happening really were more than 1% at the time. ????
The latest comments make clear that Schwartz now regrets the missed returns. However, his explanation centers on his personal approach to risk. Selling at new highs allowed him to reduce exposure to assets whose future prices remained highly uncertain at the time.
His decisions also covered Bitcoin. Schwartz has previously acknowledged selling much of his early Bitcoin holdings at prices far below later market levels. His comments have repeatedly presented those sales as part of a broader effort to manage volatility rather than a specific judgment that the underlying networks would fail.
Former Ripple CTO has reduced his personal crypto exposure
Schwartz once held a much larger XRP position than he does. As previously reported, his historical XRP holdings peaked at about 26 million tokens. He has since reduced that exposure and said in May that he had moved much of his wealth outside cryptocurrencies, apart from his Ripple equity.
That approach means Schwartz still has financial exposure to the digital asset industry through Ripple while holding fewer cryptocurrencies directly. He has not provided a complete public breakdown of his current portfolio, making it difficult to determine exactly how much XRP, Bitcoin or Ethereum he still owns. His recent statements instead focus on the broader shift toward lower personal crypto exposure.
The strategy also explains why his early sales continued even as cryptocurrency prices moved higher. Schwartz said his agreement with his wife called for selling at every new all-time high. Such sales locked in gains while gradually lowering the share of the households wealth tied to volatile digital assets.
His latest remarks do not present that approach as the best strategy for other investors. Rather, Schwartz described a personal preference that favored lower risk, even when that choice meant giving up the possibility of much larger returns.
Early XRP sales return to a wider price debate
Schwartzs comments come months after his previous statements about XRP price forecasts drew attention from the community. In January, he said that selling XRP at $0.10 once seemed reasonable because even $0.25 appeared unlikely to him. The example formed part of his response to claims that XRP could eventually reach much higher price targets.
The discussion also followed renewed attention around one of his older XRP posts. As crypto.news reported in April, Schwartz rejected claims that a 2017 discussion about XRP liquidity represented a guaranteed price prediction. He said the comments explained the relationship between asset value, liquidity and transaction size rather than promising holders a specific future price.
His latest admission does not introduce a new XRP forecast. Instead, it adds personal context to his earlier trading decisions. Schwartz has repeatedly acknowledged that he underestimated how high several cryptocurrencies could rise while also maintaining a cautious approach toward extreme future price targets.
The distinction has remained central to his recent comments. His regret concerns the returns he missed by selling early, while his explanation focuses on the information and probability estimates available to him when he made those decisions.
Schwartz remains active around XRP after leaving daily leadership
Schwartz stepped away from Ripples day-to-day chief technology officer duties at the end of 2025 and became CTO Emeritus. However, he has remained involved with the company and the XRP Ledger community. As previously reported, he said he planned to continue coding, running independent XRPL infrastructure and researching new uses for XRP.
His involvement has continued through 2026. In June, Schwartz backed the XRP Ledger 3.2.0 upgrade by updating his independent hub server. The release included changes affecting XRPL infrastructure and tools connected with decentralized finance, lending and tokenized assets.
More recently, as crypto.news reported, Schwartz continued discussing the long-running legal debate surrounding XRP and Ripples case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He argued that the regulator had originally used broader language about XRP before the court later separated the token itself from the circumstances surrounding particular sales.
Schwartzs latest comments remain focused on his own financial decisions. His early XRP and Ethereum sales produced returns at the time but left him without much of the later upside. More than a decade later, he continues to describe those decisions through the same framework: he accepts that reducing risk can also mean selling an asset long before it reaches its eventual peak.