After years as one of the main engineers behind the XRP Ledger, Nik Bougalis is now officially the chief technology officer at the Algorand Foundation. The announcement closed the chapter on a long guessing game about where he would land after leaving Ripple in 2022.
His CV speaks for itself. With close to 10 years at Ripple, he ran the teams that built and maintained the XRP Ledger codebase, with three patents in cryptography along the way.
Anyone who has touched XRPL development has likely worked through code Bougalis wrote or reviewed. The shift means Algorand picks up someone who knows how to keep a live blockchain humming under real traffic, not just on testnet slides.
Ripple CTO reaction
Ripple’s own leadership could not ignore the news. David "JoelKatz" Schwartz reacted by congratulating both sides, but at the same time admitting that the San Francisco-based crypto company had "really, really tried" to keep the developer from walking out.
Later, however, in a reply to a user who asked if he was bored at Ripple, Schwartz gave a broader explanation that Bougalis was "much more exhausted than bored" during his time with XRPL. That line hit harder than expected, hinting at how heavy the grind has been inside Ripple’s camp.
For Algorand, the win is obvious as they gain credibility with the developer who knows the XRP Ledger and XRP's $180 billion story in particular well. As for Ripple, the exit is a reminder that even deep ties and years of collaboration cannot always keep talent anchored in one place.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team