Ripple’s backstory just got a little twist. A newly surfaced document suggests that Ripple was conceived as far back as 2004 — years before Bitcoin was introduced. Ripple Predates Bitcoin? The document, shared by XRP community figure SMOQE, entails a 2014 email exchange between prominent industry insiders, notably tech journalist Reutzel Bailey. Bailey suggested that Ripple’s origin dates back to 2004, four years before Satoshi Nakamoto put out the Bitcoin Whitepaper in 2008, sparking questions about the true origins of the digital finance revolution. 2014 E-mails confirm: “Ripple is older than Bitcoin.” pic.twitter.com/9c8cOF4065 — SMQKE (@SMQKEDQG) June 24, 2025 According to Bailey, Ryan Fugger first conceived the idea behind Ripple in 2004, creating a platform called RipplePay. This platform sought to facilitate peer-to-peer value transfer without relying on legacy banking rails. Chris Larsen, now Ripple’s Executive Chairman, later advanced the project. Bailey claims that Larsen took advantage of the growing hype around Bitcoin to steer Ripple in a cryptocurrency direction, despite the project’s original focus not being on a public crypto. In the email exchange, Jeffrey Cliff rubbished claims that Ripple was launched as a “copycat math-based currency” riding Bitcoin’s popularity. He stressed that “Ripple predates Bitcoin.” XRP Ledger Emerges In 2012 The timelines imply that Ripple’s concept emerged in 2004, while its cross-border payments cryptocurrency XRP was introduced in 2012, four years after Bitcoin’s public debut. This means that while Ripple might be technically older than Bitcoin, BTC is still the world’s first cryptocurrency, launched by Satoshi four years before XRP. Developers Jed McCaleb , Arthur Britto , and David Schwartz started creating the XRP Ledger (XRPL) in 2011. They aimed to create a more efficient system than Bitcoin, addressing its limitations, particularly its reliance on the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism. McCaleb convinced Fugger to transform RipplePay into a crypto network, leading to the creation of NewCoin in 2012, which was later renamed OpenCoin and then simply Ripple. The XRPL creators allocated 80 billion XRP to Ripple, with McCaleb personally receiving 9.5 billion XRP. After he departed from Ripple to create Stellar, McCaleb agreed to liquidate his XRP holdings gradually, with the last stash sold in 2022.
