David Schwartz, former CTO at Ripple, doesn’t care pushed away against accusations that he misled XRP holders by addressing claims of secret government deals and hidden pricing mechanisms in a series of posts on X that appear to have reignited a long-running debate within the community.
The controversy emerged after user X @uptownsaul raised questions about whether Schwartz had not been limpid with the XRP community regarding undisclosed Ripple deals. The exchange prompted the Ripple veteran to step in and provide a direct explanation – one that touched on NDAs, pricing theory, and what he described as persistent misinformation circulating in the space.
Schwartz draws the line between NDAs and conspiracy theories
From his posts on X, it appears that Schwartz has not denied that Ripple maintains confidential contracts. He acknowledged that many of the firm’s partners require NDAs to be entered into to protect their business arrangements. What he insisted on was interpreting these agreements as evidence of something greater.
In his posts, Schwartz seemed to categorize repeated claims – that the U.S. government has a secret plan for XRP or that Ripple is holding up the mechanism that allows prices to skyrocket – as conspiracy theories that are “almost always” false. He stated that there are no secret agreements with the government and that Ripple deposit releases follow a set, publicly verifiable schedule on the XRP ledger.
A edged challenge to price theory
Schwartz also addressed long-standing speculation about extreme XRP price targets. In one of his posts on the site, X asked why well-capitalized investors who truly believed in a multi-thousand-dollar XRP scenario would no longer offer a much higher price, citing the lack of such activity as their own form of market data.
When user X @NeilBilon weighed in on the discussion, Schwartz responded again, reiterating that Ripple’s activities and goals are communicated through public channels, even if some commercial details remain confidential.
Separately, @TGMoney85 asked additional questions about Schwartz’s previous statements, to which Schwartz responded by clarifying that his earlier comments on XRP’s role were economic in nature, not price predictions.
At the time of writing, XRP is trading at around $2.11, and Schwartz’s comments are attracting significant attention from the community but appear to have little direct impact on the price of the asset in question.
XRP's trends sideways on the daily chart. Source: XRPUSD on Tradingview
Cover photo from Grok, XRPUSD chart from Tradingview
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