Peter Smith
Ever wonder what your favorite crypto might've been called? Ripple's CTO David Schwartz just spilled some serious history, and we could've been trading "Stamps" instead of XRP right now.
It started when someone on X asked if Ripple was originally called "Stamps." Instead of a quick answer, Schwartz went detective mode, digging through old emails to get the story straight.
XRP Almost Became "Stamps"
Turns out, Arthur Britto – one of the XRP Ledger creators – wanted to call it "Stamps" back in March 2012. The project was called "Newcoin" then, and "BeemPay" was the other top choice.
Schwartz found an email from September 2012 where he called smart contracts "stamps." The crazy part? "This was September of 2012 and development of smart contracts on layer 1 blockchains didn't even really start until a year and a half later," he tweeted. These guys were way ahead of their time.
From Newcoin to Ripple (XRP)
The timeline's pretty wild. XRP Ledger launched in June 2012 by Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Britto. They started "NewCoin" in September 2012, switched to OpenCoin, then finally became Ripple Labs in 2013.
When someone said "whoever came up with Ripple did a good job," Schwartz gave credit to Ryan Fugger, a team member who came up with the winning name.
Imagine if we were all talking about "STAMPS partnerships" instead of Ripple today. Sometimes the smallest decisions shape entire industries – and thankfully, they picked a name that actually makes sense for cross-border payments.
Peter Smith
