Ripple CTO: XRP Has No Issuer

Ripple CTO David Schwartz, in a recent answer on X, shed light on a key feature of the XRP Ledger, clawback, stating categorically that XRP has no issuer.

A user X had asked Ripple’s CTO to shed light on the clawback, asking if the feature could be used to recover XRP lost due to scams.

The Ripple CTO answered in the negative, highlighting the implication of the question as one that could encourage refund scammers. Schwartz he added that only an issuer of a token can be struck, and as XRP has no issuer, it cannot be struck.

In August 2024, the clawback function was activated XRP Ledger through the clawback amendment.

The AMM clawback feature enabled by the AMM clawback amendment in January 2025 allows tokens to be reclaimed from a holder who has deposited issued tokens into an AMM pool. The amendment also allowed Ripple USD stablecoin RLUSD, a clawback token, to be exchanged and exchanged directly on XRP Ledger’s DEX.

XRP cannot be hacked

The need for clawback comes as some issuers may request the ability to recover tokens after they are distributed to accounts, for regulatory and compliance purposes.

For example, if an issuer discovers that tokens have been sent to an account sanctioned for illegal activity, the issuer could recover, or freeze, the funds. The ability to recover funds is controlled differently for different types of tokens, which must be activated by the issuer. The feature is not automatic as the issuer must initiate the clawback. In addition, MPT tokens can be seized by the issuer if the clawback feature has been activated for the MPT issue. This capability was added by MPTokenv1amendment, activated in January of this year.

However, XRP it is not a token (all assets other than XRP can be represented in the XRP Ledger as tokens) and it cannot be struck because it has no issuer, as the Ripple CTO stated.

XRP has a fixed total supply of 100 billion, which was entirely created at its launch in 2012, with no mining or future token creation possible.