{"id":72142,"date":"2026-02-12T14:46:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=72142"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:46:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:46:41","slug":"will-ex-ripple-cto-schwartz-develop-bitcoin-again-his-answer-turns-heads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=72142","title":{"rendered":"Will Ex-Ripple CTO Schwartz Develop Bitcoin Again? His Answer Turns Heads"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

David Schwartz, Ripple\u2019s former CTO and one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger, poured cold water on the idea of returning to Bitcoin development this week, calling Bitcoin \u201clargely a technological dead end\u201d in a reply that quickly ricocheted through crypto\u2019s never-ending decentralization debates.<\/p>\n

The exchange<\/a> started as a fight over history and governance. On Feb. 9, X user Bram Kanstein argued that XRP\u2019s early \u201cgenesis reset\u201d \u2014 often described as treating the 32,750th XRP block as a kind of starting point \u2014 illustrates crypto\u2019s centralized tendencies. Kanstein wrote that the milestone \u201cmay be thought of as the genesis,\u201d before adding: \u201cExcept it is not. The XRP Genesis reset is a prime example of the centralized nature of \u2018CrYpTO\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ex-Ripple CTO Schwartz Calls Bitcoin A \u2018Tech Dead End\u2019<\/h2>\n

Schwartz jumped in with a comparison that redirected the argument toward Bitcoin. \u201cBitcoin had at least two incidents that showed way more centralization than this incident did,\u201d he wrote, \u201cespecially since the decision in this incident was not to make any coordinated changes and just live with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That claim drew a follow-up from X user, who floated SegWit<\/a> as a candidate for what Schwartz meant, an example of coordinated protocol change. The ex-Ripple CTO pushed back on that framing: \u201cI wasn\u2019t because I don\u2019t really think of adding new features as showing centralization,\u201d he replied. \u201cBut I think you could make a good argument that it does. The biggest one I was thinking of was the coordinated 2010 rollback.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thread\u2019s tone shifted on Feb. 10 when X user Khaled Elawadi asked the question that put Schwartz\u2019s own priorities in the spotlight: since co-creating the XRPL, had he worked on or even considered developing Bitcoin again?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot really,\u201d Schwartz answered. Then he went further, sketching an argument that Bitcoin\u2019s dominance owes less to the evolution of its base-layer tech than to social and monetary inertia. \u201cI think bitcoin is largely a technological dead end for the same reason the dollar is,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe technology just doesn\u2019t seem to matter all that much to its success, at least not at the blockchain layer.\u201d<\/p>\n

For XRP supporters, Schwartz\u2019s comments served two purposes at once: a defense against charges that XRPL\u2019s early history implies unique centralization<\/a>, and a reminder that Bitcoin\u2019s \u201chands-off\u201d mythology also has had real-world exceptions in its early days.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s hard to miss is where the ex-Ripple CTO\u00a0 draws the line. Bitcoin\u2019s success can persist even if base-layer technical progress slows, because the network\u2019s strength increasingly behaves like a monetary standard rather than an engineering project. Schwartz is pursuing a different strategy for the XRP Ledger. After stepping down as Ripple CTO<\/a>, he announced that he would pursue his own projects on the XRP Ledger.<\/p>\n

At press time, XRP traded at $1.38.<\/p>\n

\"XRP<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Schwartz, Ripple\u2019s former CTO and one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger, poured cold water on the idea of returning to Bitcoin development this week, calling Bitcoin \u201clargely a technological dead end\u201d in a reply that quickly ricocheted through crypto\u2019s never-ending decentralization debates. The exchange started as a fight over history and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-72142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}