Ripple , the blockchain technology and payments firm, is one of the largest crypto companies in the world. Brad Garlinghouse , The firm's billionaire CEO is a popular industry face who is well-known for his public utterances.

However, the public nature of the payments firm seems to have raised an interlinked question of Ripple's centralized leadership and XRP 's supposed decentralized model.

A user asked on X why Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is the face of XRP, given XRP's claim to being a decentralized cryptocurrency. "I don't see the same arrangement with BTC," they wondered.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz was quick to jump in and offer a detailed explanation to address the concerns.

Schwartz highlighted that Garlinghouse is the CEO of Ripple, which is a company. But "XRP has no issuer," he continued and added that all XRP tokens were created around the launch of the XRP Ledger.

The payments firm's CTO also addressed the question of decentralization, which is a defining concept in the crypto ecosystem.

Decentralization means no single individual or group controls a blockchain or a cryptocurrency. To put it simply, decentralization makes sure that a cryptocurrency is not controlled by a centralized entity.

Those concerned about XRP Ledger's decentralized model should care less about definitions and more about what they expect from decentralization, Schwartz added.

Nonetheless, XRP faces an acute centralization issue.

As per its Q1 2025 markets report , Ripple owned 4.56 billion XRP tokens and held 37.13 billion XRP tokens in the escrow.

Garlinghouse has a reported 6.3% stake in Ripple and himself owns an undisclosed number of XRP tokens. Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen held 2.7 billion XRP tokens, as per the on-chain investigator ZachXBT.

The total XRP supply is capped at 100 billion tokens.

As per Kraken , XRP was quoted at $2.33 at the time of writing.

Ripple CTO addresses concerns around firm's leadership first appeared on TheStreet on May 27, 2025