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Author: Thejaswini, Source: Token Dispatch, Compiled by: Shaw Bitchain Vision
The check was returned.
At fifteen, Chris Larsen understood that making money is much harder than working.
He runs a car dent restoration business in his driveway in San Francisco.The neighbors drove over the broken car, and he used the borrowed tools and the teenager’s motivation to flatten the dent.
The work is honest and the price is fair.But when customers don’t pay, 15-year-old Larson felt the cruel lesson for the first time and understood how the financial system really works.
His father repaired the aircraft engine at San Francisco International Airport and received a stable salary every two weeks.His mother illustrated clients who sometimes even defaulted for months or even didn’t pay at all.Both parents understand that money is always easy to flow to those who already have money, and is much more stingy with others.
This system is designed in this way.
This frustration has been in his mind for decades, prompting him to create three multi-billion dollar companies.Each company is launching an impact on a different link in the financial system, which treats ordinary people as troubles rather than customers.
The son of a mechanic who sees through the system
1960, San Francisco.
Chris Larson’s parents knew the value of stable work.Growing up in a working-class family means he experiences the financial system from the perspective of clients rather than the bank.When his parents need a car loan or mortgage, they have to deal with bank staff who often make decisions behind the scenes.The entire process is opaque, slow, and often unfair.
Why do some people get loans easily, while others can’t?Why do banks charge different interest rates for the same service for different customers?It is obvious that you can make a decision in a few minutes, why does everything take so long?
This is a personal setback faced by millions of families, but few have experienced it personally.
After graduating from high school, Larson began studying aviation at San Jose State University. He wanted to take a pragmatic path and hoped to find a stable engineering job.But he felt that the course content was too narrow.So he transferred to San Francisco State University and changed to international business and accounting.
After graduating in 1984, Larson joined Chevron as a financial auditor.The job took him to Brazil, Ecuador and Indonesia.This experience in global business operations gave him a first-hand understanding of the operation of the international financial system.
But he needs to understand the system better before he can change it.
In 1991, Larson received his MBA from Stanford School of Business.His professor Jim Collins teaches him how to build a company that can surpass the lifespan of founders.These experiences benefited him a lot.Larsen is not interested in fast success or popular business models.He wants to build infrastructure that remains important decades later.
The combination of the Internet and finance
In 1996, the Internet boom had just begun.
While most entrepreneurs are building websites for pet supplies or grocery delivery, Larson sees a different opportunity.What if the Internet could be applied to the most traditional industry – mortgage loans?
He co-founded E-Loan with Janina Pawlowski.
The concept is to put mortgage applications online so that borrowers can apply for loans online without having to deal with brokers who charge unnecessary fees.
Most financial institutions still operate in the same way as they did in 1976, not in 1996.They ask borrowers to go to branches, fill out paper forms, and wait for weeks to get approval, and with the right software, it takes only a few minutes to make an approval decision.
The E-Loan website was launched in 1997, and borrowers can compare interest rates online, submit applications, and track loan progress.The company canceled broker commissions and reduced processing time from weeks to days.
But Larson made a decision.E-Loan became the first company to provide consumers with FICO credit scores for free.
This is a revolutionary move.Banks and credit card companies have used these scores to make loan decisions for decades, but consumers are unable to see their credit scores.The credit scoring system is like a black box that determines whether you can buy a house or a car, but you know nothing about the contents in it.This move forces the entire credit industry to become transparent.If borrowers can see their credit scores, they can understand why they are given certain interest rates and take steps to improve their credit profile.
E-Loan was launched in 1999 at the height of the Internet bubble.At its peak, the company was valued at about $1 billion.But Larson is not interested in bubbles.In 2005, he sold the E-Loan to Banco Popular for $300 million.
E-Loan is successful because it automates the bank’s manual processes.But shouldn’t we reimagine how these processes work?
Exclude banking links
In 2005, Larson had already begun to think about his next goal: the bank itself.
What would happen if an ordinary person could borrow money directly from other ordinary people and completely get rid of the bank’s intervention?
He co-founded Prosper Marketplace with John Witchel, the first P2P lending market in the United States.
What is the concept?Borrowers can publish loan applications that explain the purpose of their funds and the interest rates they are willing to pay.Personal lenders can browse these applications and choose to offer loans.The market will determine interest rates based on actual supply and demand rather than opaque banking formulas.
The platform has democratized both lenders.People with good credit can get higher returns than savings accounts.People with slightly poor credit can also get loans that traditional banks cannot provide.
But Prosper faces a problem that E-Loan has never encountered before: regulatory uncertainty.The Securities Law was formulated decades ago, and no one could have thought that ordinary people would lend to strangers through the Internet.In 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that P2P loans actually belong to securities and require registration and disclosure.Many companies may fight regulators or try to find loopholes.But Larson chose a different path.
He did not fight against the authorities, but worked with them.Prosper filed a prospectus with the SEC and adjusted its business model to comply with the securities laws.The company successfully survived regulatory challenges and continued to grow.
Because, you can’t just develop better technologies.You have to help regulators understand why new rules may be needed.
In 2012, Larson resigned as CEO of Prosper but remained chairman.He was already thinking about his next startup project at the time.P2P lending allows him to see it.Technology can break the traditional financial intermediary model.But the truly ambitious goal is not domestic lending.
This is international payment.
Building a value internet
Ripple’s idea stems from a simple observation: Cross-border remittances are still harder than sending emails.
International wire transfers take several days, are expensive, and often fail for mysterious reasons.In an era when information can spread around the world in milliseconds, capital transfers feel like they are stuck in the 1970s.
In September 2012, Larson co-founded OpenCoin with programmer Jed McCaleb.Their goal is to create a payment protocol that enables transaction settlement between any currency in seconds rather than days.The company has undergone several name changes, with OpenCoin renamed Ripple Labs in 2013 and Ripple in 2015.But its mission has never changed: to create what Larsen calls a “value Internet”.
Ripple’s idea is different from Bitcoin, which was designed to replace traditional currencies.Instead, Ripple built technology can enable traditional currencies to circulate more efficiently.Banks can use Ripple’s network for international payment settlement without opening an account in every country where they do business.The system uses Ripple’s native digital currency XRP as a transitional asset.
Instead of converting US dollars into euros through multiple intermediaries, banks can convert US dollars into XRP, then transfer XRP to another bank, and then convert XRP into euros.The whole process takes only a few seconds.
During Larson’s CEO, Ripple signed cooperation agreements with major financial institutions such as Santander Bank, American Express and Standard Chartered.You can call it a pilot project or experiment.But in reality, banks are using Ripple’s technology to process millions of dollars in real customer payments.
With the explosion of cryptocurrency markets in 2017 and 2018, XRP has become one of the most valuable digital assets in the world.At its peak, Larson held a book value of more than $59 billion, making him one of the richest people in the United States.
But Larson learned from the company he had previously founded that the skills required to expand were different from those to start a business.In 2016, he resigned as CEO to serve as executive chairman and hired Brad Garlinghouse to take charge of day-to-day operations, while he himself focused on strategic and regulatory relationships.
Success is about to be scrutinized.
Severe test of supervision
December 2020.Every cryptocurrency executive is afraid of the call he receives.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Ripple for alleging that XRP is an unregistered securities that raised $1.3 billion through illegal securities offerings.
The uncertainty arising from the lawsuit has lasted for nearly five years.The price of XRP fell as the exchange removed XRP to avoid regulatory risks.Ripple may face huge fines and its business model is also facing fundamental changes.
Larson could have settled quickly and then switched to other projects.Many cryptocurrency entrepreneurs do this.But he chose to fight to the end.
Ripple spent tens of millions of dollars in attorney fees, saying XRP’s function is currency rather than securities.The company’s lawyers pointed out that Bitcoin and Ethereum have been declared non-securities by regulators, and XRP works similarly.
This strategy proved to be true, but it took years to prove it.
In 2023, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that the programmatic sale of XRP to retail investors does not constitute a securities issuance.The ruling was a partial victory, but helped clarify the regulatory status of digital assets.
In 2025, the SEC waived its appeal and settled a fine of $125 million.The fine is not small, but it is much lower than many people expect.This legal victory verifies Larson’s long-term strategy to build a cryptocurrency company.
Rapple doesn’t roam in the regulatory gray areas like many cryptocurrency companies, but works with authorities from the very beginning.When regulation comes, the company is ready.
Ripple continued to expand its business throughout the legal dispute.In April 2025, the company acquired brokerage company Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, adding trading and custody services to its portfolio.Ripple is also applying for a national bank license and partnering with Bank of New York Mellon to custody its RLUSD stablecoin reserves.
Subtle influence
Today, Larson’s influence is far beyond the company he founded.
In 2019, he and his wife Lyna Lam donated $25 million worth of XRP to San Francisco State University, the largest cryptocurrency donation received by American universities at the time.The donation sets up professorships in the fields of fintech and innovation, while funding global programs for students.The process for universities to accept and manage donations is very strict.By working with these agencies, Larsen helped crypto philanthropy to normalize.
He also funded privacy protection campaigns through the Californians for Privacy Now alliance.The alliance successfully pushes California to pass financial privacy laws that require businesses to obtain consumer permission before sharing personal data.The event collected 600,000 signatures and lobbled major financial institutions to withdraw their objections.
Recently, Larsen began to talk openly about the impact of cryptocurrencies on the environment.In 2021, he launched a “Change Code, Not Climate” campaign to fund related work to convince Bitcoin miners to move from energy-consuming proof-of-work mining methods to more efficient alternatives.
This position has divided him with Bitcoin extremists, who argues proof of work is crucial to cybersecurity.But Larsen believes that if cryptocurrencies want to be accepted by the mainstream, they must solve the climate problem.
“This movement is not about Bitcoin, it’s against pollution,” Larson explains. “We need to rectify our industry. The problem is not to power Bitcoin with clean energy, as some people say. We need a limited supply of clean energy for other important purposes. The key is to modify the code to reduce energy use. This is the path to environmentally responsible development.”
He dared to challenge the orthodoxy of the cryptocurrency space, which reflected the same philosophy he had held in his business career: something that was popular was not always the best.
Larson, 64, still insists on working six days a week, while pursuing some hobbies that can reflect his clear-cut handling of complex problems.He and his sons repaired the classic 1960s car, disassembled the car and then reassembled it from the frame.These take three years to complete and require the attention to detail as much as he has in his career.
The future he envisions is that sending $100 from San Francisco to Lagos takes only a few seconds, but only a few cents; small businesses can enter international markets without coping with complex banking relationships.
His three companies have respectively launched an impact on different links in the financial system that failed to provide sufficient services to ordinary people.
E-Loan makes mortgage shopping transparent.Prosper democratizes lending.Ripple accelerates international payments.
The success of each business stems from building infrastructure that others can use rather than trying to control the entire market.This approach requires patience and long-term vision, and these qualities are rare in an industry known for its hype and rapid profitability.
In an age where cryptocurrencies are often associated with speculation and volatility, Larsen has proven that patient infrastructure can lead to lasting change.His work has not been completed, but the foundation of a financial system that serves users rather than institutions has been laid.
Money is becoming more and more like information—faster, cheaper, and easier to be acquired by those who were previously excluded from financial services.
This shift is still unfolding, but the direction is clear.Chris Larson has been building a track to drive transformation.
