Ripple, the company: what it is and how it relates to XRP

Quick facts

[2][1][11]

What Ripple is

Ripple is a private financial technology company based in San Francisco. It sells services to banks, businesses and institutions: cross-border payments, crypto custody, a US dollar stablecoin (RLUSD), institutional prime brokerage and treasury software. According to its website it has customers in more than 50 countries.

Ripple is not the same as XRP or the XRP Ledger: XRP is the currency and the XRP Ledger is the public network it runs on. Ripple is one of the companies that uses that network most and one of the largest XRP holders. It is not listed either: buying XRP does not give you Ripple shares (is XRP a stock?).

History and key dates

Who runs Ripple

Titles are those shown on Ripple’s official leadership page.

The XRP Ledger was created by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto, who started in 2011, before the company existed. Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb founded the company in 2012. Since Schwartz left the CTO role, the official leadership page does not list anyone with that title. [3][6]

XRPScan identifies wallets under the public names of Chris Larsen and Arthur Britto. It is a name XRPScan publishes, not confirmation of the owner. [23]

Funding and acquisitions

Ripple raised capital in several rounds from 2013; its Series C, in December 2019, was $200 million. In November 2025 it raised $500 million from investors led by Fortress and Citadel Securities at a $40 billion valuation, after a $1 billion share tender offer at the same value. According to the company, it has bought back more than 25% of its shares in recent years. [4][11]

Since 2023 it has bought several companies to add products:

Products

• Ripple Payments: cross-border, cross-currency payments for businesses and institutions. According to Ripple, total volume passed $95 billion (figure from November 2025). [11]
• RLUSD (Ripple USD): a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar, launched in December 2024. It is issued by Standard Custody & Trust Company, regulated in New York, and backed by US dollar deposits, US Treasuries and cash equivalents; BNY is the primary reserve custodian. In October 2026 its market cap was about $2.5 billion. [18][19]
• Ripple Custody: digital asset custody for banks and institutions, built on Metaco and Palisade technology. [12][16]
• Ripple Prime: institutional prime brokerage, formerly Hidden Road. [14][11]
• Ripple Treasury: corporate treasury software, formerly GTreasury. [15][20]
• Ripple National Trust Bank: a US national trust bank with final OCC approval since October 26, 2026. It manages RLUSD reserves and will offer digital asset custody. It does not take deposits or make loans like a regular bank. [19]

Ripple, XRP and the XRP Ledger

Ripple does not control the XRP Ledger. The network existed before the company, and its rules only change if more than 80% of trusted validators support an amendment for two weeks. Ripple runs public servers for the network (this site uses two of them) and contributes code, but its vote counts the same as any other validator’s. [3]

What Ripple does have is a lot of XRP. It received 80 billion at its birth, in December 2017 it locked 55 billion in escrow, and since then up to 1 billion is released each month: Ripple uses or sells part of it and locks the rest again. It is explained step by step in how Ripple escrow works. [3][8]

Ripple’s currencies: XRP and RLUSD

XRP: Ripple holds 35,146,105,581 XRP, adding up its known wallets (4,046,105,581 XRP) and escrow (31,100,000,000 XRP). Ripple does not create new XRP: all XRP has existed since the XRP Ledger began.

RLUSD (Ripple USD): Ripple’s US dollar stablecoin. On the XRP Ledger it is issued by the account rMxCKbEDwqr76QuheSUMdEGf4B9xJ8m5De, and on Ethereum it is the contract 0x8292bb45bf1ee4d140127049757c2e0ff06317ed. It also circulates on Base, Ink, Optimism, Robinhood Chain, Unichain and the XRP Ledger EVM sidechain. [21][18]

Read live from the XRP Ledger and Ethereum (2026-11-15 01:15 UTC). Other networks are not included.

Total reported by Ripple across all networks: $2,632.9 million as of November 5, 2026, with $2,748.0 million in reserves. [22]

The SEC case and how it ended

• December 22, 2020: The SEC sued Ripple, Garlinghouse and Larsen, accusing them of selling more than $1.3 billion of XRP as an unregistered security. [4]
• July 13, 2023: Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple’s XRP sales to institutional investors were unregistered investment contracts, but that its programmatic sales on exchanges were not. [4]
• October 2023: The SEC dropped its remaining claims against Garlinghouse and Larsen. [4]
• August 7, 2024: Final judgment: a $125,035,150 penalty and a permanent injunction barring Ripple from violating registration rules when selling XRP to institutions. [4][9]
• June 26, 2025: Torres rejected the joint request to cut the penalty to $50 million and lift the injunction. [4]
• August 7, 2025: The SEC and Ripple dropped their appeals. The case ended: the penalty and the injunction remain in force. [9][4]

The ruling looked at how Ripple sold XRP, not at whether XRP is a security in itself. In March 2026 the SEC, together with the CFTC, published a general interpretation that names XRP among its examples of “digital commodities”. [10]

Ripple’s wallets and escrow, live

Data read from the XRP Ledger by this site.

In its 89 known wallets, Ripple holds 4,046,105,581 XRP.

31,100,000,000 XRP remain locked in escrow. The next unlock is in December 2026.

XRP in escrow does not show in wallet balances while it is locked. Wallet names come from public lists: Ripple may hold others that nobody has identified. [23]

Sources

1. Ripple — Leadership
2. Ripple — Company
3. XRPL.org — History of the XRP Ledger
4. Wikipedia — Ripple Labs
5. Wikipedia — Brad Garlinghouse
6. Wikipedia — Jed McCaleb
7. Decrypt (1 Oct 2025) — Ripple CTO David Schwartz to step back, remain on board as CTO emeritus
8. Ripple (Dec 2017) — Ripple escrows 55 billion XRP for supply predictability
9. Reuters via Yahoo Finance (Aug 2025) — SEC ends lawsuit against Ripple, company to pay $125 million fine
10. SEC (17 Mar 2026) — SEC clarifies the application of federal securities laws to crypto assets
11. Ripple (5 Nov 2025) — $500 million strategic investment led by Fortress and Citadel Securities at a $40 billion valuation
12. CNBC (17 May 2023) — Ripple buys Swiss startup Metaco
13. CryptoPotato — Ripple’s big moves since 2023 (Standard Custody, 2024)
14. American Banker (8 Apr 2025) — Ripple to acquire prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion
15. The Block (Oct 2025) — Ripple acquires GTreasury for $1 billion
16. FinTech Futures (Nov 2025) — Ripple acquires Palisade
17. The Block (10 Mar 2026) — Ripple to acquire BC Payments to secure Australian license
18. The Paypers (Dec 2024) — Ripple launches RLUSD stablecoin with NYDFS trust charter approval
19. Ripple (26 Oct 2026) — Ripple receives final OCC approval to establish national trust bank
20. Ripple — Press releases (Swell 2026, 26–29 Oct 2026)
21. Ripple Docs — RLUSD token addresses
22. Ripple — RLUSD transparency (as of 5 Nov 2026)
23. XRPScan — Well-known account names (Ripple, RLUSD, chrislarsen, ahbritto)

Facts checked on November 9, 2026.