Chris Larsen

Larsen was born in San Francisco, California. He graduated from San Francisco State UniversitySan Francisco State UniversitySan Francisco State University (SF State) is a member of the California State University system in San Francisco; it began as the San Francisco Normal School authorized by the state legislature in 1899 and, after the 1968–1969 student strike, established the first College of Ethnic Studies in the United States.Open the full entry in 1984 with a degree in international business and accounting, and earned an MBA from Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry in 1991.⁠[1][2]

After college he worked for Chevron, carrying out audits in Brazil, Ecuador and Indonesia.⁠[1]

In 1996 Larsen co-founded the online lender E-Loan, whose business had reached a market value of $1 billion by 2000. E-Loan was later acquired by Banco Popular.⁠[3][1]

At E-Loan he helped make consumer credit scores openly available to consumers.⁠[2]

In 2006 Larsen co-founded Prosper Marketplace, which Ripple described in a press release as the first peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the United States. He served as Prosper’s chief executive officer until 2012.⁠[3][1]

In 2012 Larsen co-founded Ripple and from then on served as its chief executive officer and chairman of the board.⁠[3]

Ripple is a distributed ledger technology and real-time settlement company whose XRP blockchain technology is used by institutions such as Santander and American ExpressAmerican ExpressAmerican Express Company is a payments company headquartered in New York that issues credit and charge cards and operates its own payments network; founded in 1850, it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.Open the full entry for international payments.⁠[2][1]

On November 1, 2016, Ripple announced that Larsen would move from his operational role as chief executive officer to executive chairman of the board, leading the board and overseeing strategy while remaining the company’s controlling shareholder; Brad Garlinghouse was named chief executive officer.⁠[3]

In the announcement Larsen said: “I’m grateful for the decades-long career I’ve had in Silicon Valley,” and called Garlinghouse “an obvious and capable choice for CEO.”⁠[3]

The executive chairman role was a salaried position focused on the company’s strategic direction. Larsen said he stepped down as chief executive to spend more time with his family.⁠[4]

In April 2019 Larsen, his wife Lyna Lam and the Rippleworks Foundation gave San Francisco State University $25 million in XRP. The university called it the largest gift ever made in a digital asset to a U.S. university.⁠[5][6]

The gift endowed two permanent faculty positions at the university’s College of Business, the Rippleworks Endowed Chair for Innovation & Entrepreneurship and the Lam-Larsen Endowed Chair in Financial Technology; the college was also to be renamed the Lam Family College of Business, subject to approval by the California State University Board of Trustees.⁠[5]

At Larsen’s recommendation, the college was named in honor of Lyna Lam’s family. Two of Lam’s sisters and several other family members attended the university, and the couple had supported it since 2001.⁠[6]

On December 22, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple Labs, Larsen and Garlinghouse in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging an eight-year unregistered securities offering of XRP and alleging that Garlinghouse and Larsen aided and abetted Ripple Labs’ offers and sales of XRP.⁠[7]

On July 13, 2023, Judge Analisa Torres granted the defendants summary judgment on Garlinghouse’s personal XRP sales and on Ripple’s programmatic sales, and denied the SEC’s motion for summary judgment on the aiding and abetting claim.⁠[7]

On October 19, 2023, the SEC filed to dismiss its claims against Garlinghouse and Larsen, who had been scheduled to go to trial the following April.⁠[8][7]

In late January 2024, XRP worth about $112 million was stolen from a crypto wallet belonging to Larsen. On January 31 he wrote on X: “Yesterday, there was unauthorized access to a few of my personal XRP accounts (not @Ripple).”⁠[9]

Larsen said the fraudulent activity was detected quickly and the affected addresses were frozen with the help of other exchanges; a Ripple spokesperson confirmed that Ripple was not affected.⁠[9]

As of November 2026, Larsen sits on Ripple’s board of directors as executive chairman and is listed as a co-founder of the company.⁠[10]

Larsen has served on the boards or advisory boards of Betable, Credit KarmaCredit KarmaCredit Karma is a US personal finance platform owned by Intuit. It grew from free credit scores and reports beginning in 2007 into financial-product comparisons, cash-flow and net-worth tools. It earns revenue through arrangements including referral commissions from financial partners and is not a bank.Open the full entry and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). In 2004 he received San Francisco State University’s Alumnus of the Year award.⁠[2]

He and his wife Lyna Lam support causes including civic life, public safety, criminal justice reform, psychedelic science, climate change mitigation, and Buddhist and Khmer cultural institutions.⁠[1]

Ripple: Official website: https://ripple.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

X: Public account: https://x.com/chrislarsensf (opens in a new window).⁠[9]