David Schwartz (데이비드 슈워츠), Ripple's former chief technology officer, has directly rebutted criticism over his past sales of XRP. He stressed that he cannot accept the claim that selling an asset is morally inferior to buying.

According to blockchain media outlet The Crypto Basic on May 6, the controversy resurfaced after Schwartz recently voiced scepticism about extreme XRP price projections. He said claims in parts of the community that XRP could rise to $100 or $10,000 were unrealistic.

"If wealthy investors seriously believed there was even a 1 percent chance XRP could reach $10,000, they would have already started buying on a massive scale," Schwartz said. "If that had happened, the current price would have reached at least around $20."

After those remarks, some in the XRP community said Schwartz had previously underestimated XRP's upside potential. He has disclosed that in XRP's early days he saw a low chance of the price rising to $0.25 and, based on that view, sold most of his holdings when XRP reached about $0.10.

As criticism grew, Schwartz responded directly on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. "Everyone had the opportunity to buy and sell XRP under the same conditions as I did," he said. "I sold bitcoin and ethereum in the same way, but there was no particular issue raised about that."

He then stressed that he completely rejects the idea that selling is morally inferior to buying. He argued that investors should prioritise their own financial interests over other people's expected returns. Schwartz said he has consistently maintained the position that "you should sell when it is financially helpful." He added that this philosophy aligned with the libertarian values of the early cryptocurrency community.

His past investment cases are also drawing renewed attention. Schwartz has disclosed that he sold 40,000 ether at about $1.05 each, securing about $42,000. The same amount would now be worth about $94.2 million, but he said he currently holds less than 2 ether.

He is also known to have sold a substantial amount of bitcoin early. He said he once held more than 1,000 bitcoin but sold most at around $1,000 and later sold the remainder at about $7,500. He added that he currently holds less than 1 bitcoin.

Those comments are again being used as grounds to criticise his investment judgement. Some XRP supporters say Schwartz has repeatedly underestimated the long-term upside potential of bitcoin, ethereum and XRP.

Schwartz, however, drew a line at claims that being a key project figure creates an obligation to keep holding the related token. "The logic that someone who created a project must hold the token until the end feels illogical," he said. He added that he still holds more than 1 million XRP and stressed that he has not completely exited the XRP market.

In the industry, the debate is seen as spreading beyond a simple dispute over price forecasts to an argument over how far a key project figure's token holdings and sales should be treated as a matter of responsibility. Schwartz views it as an area of personal financial judgement, but some communities counter that the more closely someone is connected to a project, the greater their long-term holding responsibility is.