On Thursday (April 2), Chris Larsen, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Fintech firm Ripple announced that he had “made a full recovery” from COVID-19.
Chris Larsen was born in San Francisco, California, and got his bachelor’s degree (B.S.) in accounting and business administration in 1984 from San Francisco State University (SFSU). In 2012, he and Jed McCaleb co-founded FinTech startup OpenCoin, which got renamed to Ripple Labs a year later. In February 2018, Forbes named him “the richest person in cryptocurrency”.
This was the tweet that Larsen sent out yesterday to give the good news about his recovery:
Thank you to everyone on the frontlines keeping us safe – am truly grateful to report that I’ve made a full recovery from #COVID19. If you’ve recovered from the virus, please consider donating your blood to help with antibody transplants: https://t.co/icm06Et5fr pic.twitter.com/331Mjv43Z6
— Chris Larsen (@chrislarsensf) April 2, 2020
It is admirable that Larsen is not only donating his blood so that others who are currently fighting this disease have a better chance of surviving, but he is encouraging others to do so also, and given Ripple’s sizeable fan base (i.e. XRP HODLers), his recommendation could make a significant difference.
Ripple CTO David Schwartz explained why this was a good idea:
The idea is to use the antibodies that his body is making to attack the virus in very sick people, slowing the virus down and buying their immune systems extra time to fight the virus before the virus overwhelms their lungs.
— David Schwartz (@JoelKatz) April 2, 2020
There's some evidence from studies using similar viruses that this could be used as a form of temporary vaccine. It could provide immunity for several months. The downside is that most of the people you would give it to wouldn't have gotten infected anyway, … 1/2
— David Schwartz (@JoelKatz) April 2, 2020
… so you have to be really confident it's very safe over the long-term for the rewards to outweigh the risks. That's hard to do in less than a year and a half or so. The trade-off is better critical cases even with less confidence of safety. 2/2
— David Schwartz (@JoelKatz) April 2, 2020
Last April, San Francisco State University’s business school announced that it had received from Larsen, his wife, and non-profit foundation Rippleworks one of the largest crypto donations ever made to a U.S. university.
The university said that Larsen and his wife are “longtime supporters” (in fact, SFSU named him “Alum of the Year” in 2004). It also notes that this donation “will support the “Lam-Larsen Fund for Global Innovation” and two endowed chairs,” and that the “focus of these funds is to support students in learning about and becoming changemakers of local and global entrepreneurial and fintech ecosystems.”
Featured Image via Twitter
