Ripple CTO’s Regret: The $100 Million Mistake That Haunts Him! 😱💸

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In the dimly lit corridors of the digital realm, where fortunes are made and lost with the flick of a finger, there exists a man, David Schwartz, the Chief Technology Officer of Ripple, who recently bared his soul on the platform known as X. Ah, the weight of regret! It clings to him like a shadow, a specter of choices past that gnaws at the very fabric of his being. Schwartz, in a moment of unguarded candor, lamented the folly of lowering himself to the level of others, a descent into the abyss of mediocrity that he now ruefully contemplates.

As if summoned by fate, an anonymous user, perhaps a modern-day Socrates, chimed in with a lament of his own: “My biggest regret was not buying more at 50 cents,” he quipped, referring to the meteoric rise of XRP, which has soared like a phoenix from the ashes, a staggering 300% since its nadir of $0.50 in the bleak November days. At the time of this writing, XRP danced upon the precipice of $2.43, having flirted with a seven-year high of $3.38 in the frosty month of January.

For me, selling 40,000 ETH at $1.05 is pretty high on my list of regrets too.

— David “JoelKatz” Schwartz (@JoelKatz) February 8, 2025

Ah, but the plot thickens! Schwartz, in a moment of introspection, revealed that the act of selling 40,000 ETH at the paltry sum of $1.05 ranks among his most grievous missteps, a veritable albatross around his neck in the grand tapestry of his crypto odyssey.

Once upon a time, in the pre-ICO era of Ethereum, Schwartz had been graced with the opportunity to acquire a staggering 40,000 ETH, a treasure bestowed upon him by none other than the illustrious Vitalik Buterin himself. Driven by a noble desire to support this burgeoning project, Schwartz, without a moment’s hesitation, committed 20 BTC, a sum that now seems laughably small in the face of what was to come.

40,000 ETH sold for solar panels? Oh, the irony!

In a twist that could only be described as tragically comedic, Schwartz confessed that he had sold the 40,000 ETH when it reached the princely sum of $1, using the proceeds to purchase solar panels for a domicile he no longer possessed. The irony! The ETH stash, which would later swell to a value of $100 million, now serves as a reminder of the folly of human choices.

The crypto community, ever the eager audience, responded with a cacophony of reactions. One inquisitive soul dared to inquire about the fate of those solar panels, while others reflected on the “$100 million opportunity” that slipped through Schwartz’s fingers like grains of sand.

In a world where transparency is often a rare commodity, Schwartz has remained an open book regarding his crypto holdings. He has candidly acknowledged, in the grand theater of X, that he has sold some Bitcoin (BTC) in the past, but only to acquire more XRP and Ethereum, rather than to diversify into the chaotic realm of other digital assets.

At the zenith of his holdings, Schwartz boasted a staggering 26 million XRP, a fortune he has never relinquished to purchase other cryptocurrencies, save for perhaps a few paltry quantities for “unusual” reasons. Meanwhile, in a January missive, Ripple’s own CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, laid bare his own holdings, which included XRP, BTC, and ETH, among a motley assortment of others, all while extolling the virtues of a multichain world and a level playing field for all cryptocurrencies.

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2025-02-09 17:43