David Schwartz Says He Sold 2.5 Million XRP and Paid $1.7 Million in Tax

• David Schwartz confirmed selling 2.5 million XRP in 2025 and paying $1.7 million in capital gains tax.
• Schwartz said his XRP sales follow a written plan arranged with an attorney at least 30 days in advance.
• Schwartz’s sales reflect personal risk management rather than a shift in confidence in XRP. 

David Schwartz, former Ripple Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), has confirmed on X that he sold around 2.5 million XRP in 2025 and paid around 1.7 million in capital gains tax. 

Schwartz’s disclosure also shed light on his approach to managing XRP holdings, including a pre-planned selling strategy, his efforts to avoid potential conflicts involving non-public information, and his broader preference for reducing exposure to financial risk.

David Schwartz Confirms Selling 2.5M XRP and Paying $1.7M in Taxes

On November 9, 2026, David Schwartz publicly confirmed selling about 2.5 million XRP in 2025 and incurred a capital gains tax of about 1.7 million on the 2025 sales. He said most of the tokens had been received in 2020 and 2023.

Schwartz made the disclosure on X while discussing IRS Letter 6174, a notice he said he had received the previous day and discarded, describing it as “basically just a reminder to follow the law.” In related posts, he explained that every XRP sale follows a written plan arranged with an attorney at least 30 days in advance.

He explained the structure is meant to avoid any credible claims that he trades on non-public information such as reports of possible XRP Ledger issues. He has also revealed that his own XRP holdings have declined from a high of about 26 million to about 3 million.

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How Chronic Risk Aversion Drove Schwartz to Sell XRP

Schwartz has consistently cited his sales and diminished crypto exposure as stemming from a long-standing personal aversion to financial risk, not a specific view on XRP’s prospects. He stated, “I haven’t bought XRP in a long time. I am very uncomfortable with risk and have sold nearly all of the digital assets I’ve ever held.” He added that he still holds a significant amount of Ripple stock and that this equity position alone represents more risk than he prefers.

He characterized this aversion as a consistent personality trait in his life and investments, not limited to crypto or XRP. Schwartz noted that nearly every risk he has taken in the crypto space has worked out well for him. 

Although he understands logically that he should take more risk, he remains unable to become comfortable with it. Schwartz has also explicitly stated that he and his wife established a systematic rule early on to sell some of their digital asset holdings when prices hit new all-time highs.

Furthermore, his liquidation of holdings is not limited to XRP. Schwartz reported that his Bitcoin (BTC) holdings had reduced to 1 BTC from 1,500 BTC, and his Ethereum (ETH) holdings had dropped to 6 ETH from 40 000 ETH. That said, these downsizing indicate his desire to minimize financial risk rather than necessarily signaling a loss of confidence in crypto.

What Does Schwartz’s Decision Mean for XRP? 

Schwartz’s sales reflect personal portfolio management and not an official Ripple action or XRP Ledger operations or tokenomics change. The 2.5 million XRP sold in 2025 is a very small amount of volume compared to the overall market activity and circulating supply of XRP. 

In addition, community responses on X are mixed, but no publicly known data links his sales to material short-term price or liquidity impacts. As a result, Schwartz’s disclosures primarily reveal his personal risk preferences rather than a change in XRP’s fundamentals or Ripple’s corporate strategy.

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Related: David Schwartz Says XRP Ledger Stayed Online During a Network-Wide Attack