Ripple CTO: XRP has no issuer

Ripple CTO David Schwartz, in a recent response on

X users asked Ripple CTO to clarify about clawbacks and whether this feature could be used to recover XRP lost due to fraud.

Ripple’s CTO answered in the negative, emphasizing that this question is meant to potentially encourage refund scammers. Schwartz added that only the issuer of the token can get it back, and since XRP does not have an issuer, the token cannot be taken back.

In August 2024, the clawback fix enabled clawback functionality on the XRP Ledger.

The AMM Clawback feature, enabled by the January 2025 AMM Clawback Amendment, allows the clawback of tokens from holders who have deposited their issued tokens into the AMM pool. With this fix, the Ripple USD stablecoin RLUSD (clawback token) can now be traded and exchanged directly on the XRP Ledger’s DEX.

XRP cannot be recovered

Clawbacks are necessary because, for regulatory and compliance purposes, some issuers may require the ability to recover tokens after they have been distributed to an account.

For example, if the issuer discovers that tokens were sent to an account authorized for illegal activity, the issuer may recover or recover funds. The ability to get your funds back is controlled differently for each token type and must be enabled by the issuer. This feature is not automatic as the issuer must initiate the clawback. Additionally, MPT tokens may be clawbacked by the issuer if the clawback feature is enabled for the MPT issuance. This feature was added by MPTokenv1amendment and enabled in January of this year.

However, as the Ripple CTO stated, XRP is not a token (all assets other than XRP can be represented as tokens on the XRP ledger) and cannot be retrieved as there is no issuer.

The total supply of XRP is fixed at 100 billion, fully created at launch in 2012, and cannot be mined or created in the future.