Ripple’s Director of Engineering Leaves Firm as XRP Turns 10

Nik Bougalis says he’s not joining another blockchain or Web3 company.

By Sam Reynolds

Oct 24, 2022 at 7:36 a.m. UTC

Updated Oct 24, 2022 at 3:16 p.m. UTC

CDCROP: Nik Bougalis (Ripple YouTube) — Nik Bougalis (Ripple YouTube)

Sam Reynolds

Follow @thesamreynolds on Twitter

Ripple’s chief engineer announced over the weekend that he is leaving the company to chart new horizons, which he chose not to reveal.

“My decade-long journey at Ripple has been a fantastic (if exhausting and all-consuming) one. I got to work on a project that I love, towards a goal I believe in. But that journey will be coming to an end in a few weeks,” Bougalis tweeted.
At Ripple, Bougalis oversaw a series of developments to the ledger’s code base including the introduction of non-fungible tokens (NFT), which is scheduled to go live in November.
Bougalis’ departure comes as Ripple begins testing an XRP ledger sidechain that’s compatible with Ethereum-based smart contracts. This would allow developers familiar with the much larger Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) software to deploy their code onto Ripple.
Although unrelated to Bougalis’ position at Ripple, the company continues its two-year fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on whether XRP is considered a security.
Bougalis has not indicated where he will be heading next.
XRP is currently trading at 45 cents, down 0.38% on-day.

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