Chris Larsen, born in 1960, is an American business executive, angel investor and the co-founder and former CEO of OpenCoin, which later rebranded to Ripple.
Ripple Labs developed their own blockchain technology, the XRP ledger, to improve cross-border payments between various banking systems in the world. The network of financial institutions using all of Ripple’s products is called RippleNet.
During Larsen’s role as Ripple’s CEO, he made two notable donations of his personal XRP. The first was in May 2014, when he committed to donating 7 billion XRP to an unnamed cause after fellow co-founder Jed McCaleb exited the company and announced that he would sell off his 9 billion XRP. In April 2019, Larsen and his wife, Lyna Lam donated $25 million in XRP to San Francisco State University, allocated to the school of business, in what was the largest donation in digital assets to a university at the time.
In 2016, Larsen stepped down as CEO of Ripple Labs and took on the role of executive chairman.
Prior to entering the crypto industry, Larsen co-founded online mortgage lending company E-Loan and peer-to-peer lending company Prosper Marketplace.
