A fresh debate has broken out in the XRP community after Ripple CTO David Schwartz disclosed that he sold roughly 2.5 million XRP during 2025.
Schwartz said most of the XRP he sold had been received in 2020 and 2023, adding that he paid approximately $1.7 million in capital gains taxes on the transactions.
The disclosure prompted a familiar question from XRP critics: if XRP is expected to play a much larger role in global payments and financial infrastructure, why would people closely associated with its development sell millions of tokens?
XRP community lawyer Bill Morgan pushed back, arguing that the criticism creates a contradiction.
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Critics Question XRP Insider Selling
One post responding to Schwartz asked why Ripple-linked figures would sell large XRP positions if they genuinely believed the asset was destined to become part of global financial infrastructure.
On the surface, the argument is straightforward.
Large sales by early holders can create additional market supply, and investors naturally pay attention when people closely associated with a project reduce their positions.
But a personal sale does not necessarily reveal a person’s long-term view of an asset.
Schwartz specifically disclosed the sale in the context of capital gains taxes. His statement does not say he exited XRP completely or that his view of the XRP Ledger changed.
The 2.5 million XRP figure also needs context: Ripple itself still controls a vastly larger amount.
Read also: Why Is XRP Crashing Harder Than Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana?
Bill Morgan Points to a Contradiction in the XRP Criticism
Morgan responded by pointing out that Ripple is frequently criticized for the opposite reason.
Some XRP skeptics argue that Ripple owns too much of the token supply and that this concentration creates centralization concerns.
At the same time, reductions in XRP holdings by Ripple-linked individuals or the company can also attract criticism as “dumping.”
Sure. It is the question of the day from the same people who complain that Ripple holds too much XRP which they say makes the XRPL centralized. The same people who say XRP is a bankers coin and then criticise XRP because apparently for them no banks are using it.
— bill morgan (@Belisarius2020) November 10, 2026
Morgan’s argument is that both complaints cannot be treated in isolation.
If reducing concentrated ownership is desirable, some XRP eventually has to move from early holders and Ripple-controlled wallets into broader circulation.
Ripple currently reports 36.81 billion XRP as part of its total holdings, including 31.7 billion XRP locked in escrow as of September 30, 2026. Around 63.18 billion XRP has been distributed.
The company originally received 80 billion of XRP’s 100 billion token supply, with 55 billion later placed into on-ledger escrow to make future releases more predictable.
Selling XRP and Believing in XRP Are Not Mutually Exclusive
The more useful question is not simply whether an insider has ever sold XRP.
It is how much is being sold, why it is being sold, and how that compares with the available liquidity and broader distribution of the token.
Ripple’s own holdings have gradually declined over time. At the end of 2024, Ripple directly held about 4.49 billion XRP and had another 38.03 billion locked in escrow. By September 2026, the escrow figure had fallen to 31.7 billion.
That redistribution can create selling pressure, but it also gradually reduces the percentage of the XRP supply controlled by Ripple.
The latest debate therefore exposes one of the longest-running tensions around XRP.
Critics want broader token distribution, yet large sales by early holders can understandably worry investors.
Schwartz’s 2.5 million XRP sale does not settle that debate. But by itself, it also does not prove that Ripple insiders have lost confidence in XRP’s future.
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