<ul data-eligibleForWebStory="true"><li>Emails from 2014 indicate Ripple's origins date back to 2004, predating Bitcoin's whitepaper by four years.</li><li>RipplePay, conceived in 2004, was envisioned as a payment system to enable value transfer without banks, later transitioning towards a crypto direction.</li><li>The XRP Ledger, developed in 2011 and going live in 2012, aimed to create a network different from Bitcoin by skipping proof-of-work.</li><li>Founders gifted 80 billion XRP to the company at XRP's inception, with McCaleb selling his holdings gradually and later assisting in starting Stellar, while Larsen continues to lead Ripple.</li></ul>

Wait—Ripple Came Before Bitcoin? Newly Uncovered Document Says So

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