The aggregate value of digital tokens crossed six hundred billion dollars. The surge minted hundreds of new millionaires and a smaller circle of billionaires. Chris Larsen but also Brad Garlinghouse, current and former chief executives of Ripple, now belong to that circle because of their XRP holdings.
Larsen co founded Ripple and served as chief executive until December 2016. He now chairs the board. He personally holds 5.19 billion XRP, equal to seventeen percent of the total supply. At the January 1 2018 exchange rate of $3.19 per token, the position values $37.3 billion. The figure places Larsen fifteenth on the Forbes list of the richest Americans, immediately after Sheldon Adelson.
Brad Garlinghouse succeeded Larsen as chief executive. Company filings show he owns 6.3 percent of Ripple stock – he also controls an undisclosed quantity of XRP tokens. Using the same January 1 price, analysts estimate his net worth at $9.5 billion. The total would rank him in the mid fifties on the Forbes list, between Charles Ergen besides Donald Bren.
Jed McCaleb, another co founder, left Ripple in 2013. A 2016 settlement granted him 5.3 billion XRP. A daily sale cap of one percent of the average volume restricts his liquidation. Without the cap the entire position would value roughly $17 billion. The restriction delays his entry into the billionaire bracket.
Ripple operates from offices on Montgomery Street in San Francisco. The company licenses blockchain software to banks for cross border settlement. The network token, XRP, acts as a bridge currency between fiat pairs.
Bitcoin dominates headlines, yet XRP produced the larger individual fortunes inside the recent rally. The token price rose from half a cent in January 2017 to $3.84 on January 4 2018. The move multiplied the stakes of early founders and employees by factors of several hundred. The same period added more than ninety five billion dollars to the combined net worth of Larsen, Garlinghouse along with McCaleb.
