Ripple CTO Emeritus Reveals First Email He Received with a Mention of XRP

Ripple’s CTO Emeritus, David Schwartz, has publicly shared the first email he received that had a mention of the word “$XRP.”

David Schwartz, Ripple’s former Chief Technology Officer and now CTO Emeritus, recently shared an early moment from $XRP’s history. Specifically, he revealed the first email he ever received that mentioned $XRP, which dates back to February 2013, a time when the technology was still in its early stages.

Key Points

• David Schwartz revealed that the first $XRP-related email he received came in February 2013, during the earliest phase of the $XRP Ledger after its mid-2012 launch.
• Vinnie Falco requested $XRP in the email as part of his effort to explore Ripple’s technology after joining from the BitcoinTalk community.
• At the time of the email, $XRP changed hands at around $0.00587, while Bitcoin traded for $28, showing how early and undeveloped the crypto market was.
• In response, Alex Kravets, the inventor of Google Auto-Complete, sent 1,000 $XRP (valued at $5.87 then) to Falco on Feb. 16, 2013, now worth $1,530.

The First Email Mention

Schwartz revealed this in a recent post on X, confirming that the email came up in February 2013. Back then, the $XRP Ledger had just launched in mid-2012.

$XRP itself had little to no market presence, trading for around $0.00587. There were no major exchanges listing it, and trading activity was almost nonexistent. Even Bitcoin was still changing hands around $27, showing just how early the entire crypto space was.

Schwartz explained that this email came from Vinnie Falco. In the message, Falco introduced himself as a member of the BitcoinTalk forum and said he had created a Ripple account to better understand the technology. He then asked if Schwartz could send him some $XRP to a wallet ID named “Vinnie.”

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Early Email Mentioning $XRP

Falco Later Joined Ripple

This sort of request was common at the time, as people were not focused on profits yet. Instead, developers and early users wanted to explore how the system worked. $XRP moved mostly through informal sharing between individuals instead of structured trading.

Interestingly, Falco later became more than just an early user. He joined Ripple and played a major role in development.

For context, Falco is an experienced programmer who currently serves as President and Executive Director of the C++ Alliance. Before that, he created BearShare, a file-sharing program based on the Gnutella network. At Ripple, Falco worked on core systems and developed Beast, a C++ library used for HTTP and WebSocket communication.

The $XRP Transfer from Google Auto-Complete Inventor

When someone asked Schwartz if he sent the $XRP Falco requested, he clarified that he did not. Instead, Alex Kravets, the co-founder of Google Auto-Complete, sent the tokens. Blockchain records confirm that Kravets transferred 1,000 $XRP to Falco on Feb. 16, 2013.

At the time of that transaction, the 1,000 $XRP was worth only $5.87, which puts the price at about $0.00587 per $XRP. Today, that same amount is worth around $1,530. Meanwhile, if the transaction had transferred 1 million $XRP in 2013, it would have cost just $5,870. Today, that would be worth about $1.53 million.