I recently reviewed the history of Ripple and was surprised to discover how much of it dates back more than two decades. It all began in 2004 when Ryan Fugger, a web developer from Vancouver, had a rather advanced vision for his time: creating a fully decentralized digital monetary system. He believed that individuals and communities should be able to develop their own virtual currency without intermediaries. Thus, RipplePay was born in 2005, with the idea of facilitating secure payments worldwide.

What’s interesting is that Ryan Fugger maintained this vision for years, but the project did not end up being what he initially envisioned. In 2012, Jed McCaleb, who came from the eDonkey world, and Chris Larsen, an entrepreneur who had founded E-Loan and Prosper, joined the project. These two saw the potential in what Ryan Fugger had built and approached with a different proposal. Their idea was revolutionary: a consensus-based verification system among network members, without the need for mining like in Bitcoin.

Ryan Fugger decided to hand over the project to these two, and they completely transformed it. They renamed the company OpenCoin and developed a new protocol called Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP), specifically designed for banks and financial institutions. From 2012 onward, the team deployed their own blockchain for currency exchange services across multiple pairs and to store participants’ accounting information. This is how XRP, the system’s native cryptocurrency, was created.

By 2013, OpenCoin changed its name to Ripple Labs and began experimenting with various projects. Some of them no longer exist, but in 2014 they launched Codius, aimed at developing smart contracts. It wasn’t until 2015 that the company finally adopted the name we know today: Ripple. It’s fascinating to see how Ryan Fugger’s initial vision evolved from a decentralized system of community currencies into an enterprise infrastructure for global payments. Ripple’s story is truly an example of how an idea can completely transform through different visions and objectives.