From Triskelion to X: How XRP Changed Its Logo

Few cryptocurrencies have undergone as dramatic a visual transformation as XRP. Its logo has evolved from a spinning triskelion to a bold, angular X, reflecting not just changing design tastes but a fundamental shift in how the project defines itself. The logo's evolution tells the story of XRP's ongoing effort to establish an identity independent of Ripple, the company most closely associated with its creation and promotion.

The Original Triskelion

When Ripple Labs (originally called OpenCoin) launched its XRP-based payment protocol in 2012, the project's logo featured a triskelion — a symbol consisting of three interconnected legs or spirals radiating from a center point. The triskelion is one of humanity's oldest symbols, appearing in ancient Greek, Celtic, and Sicilian art, among many other cultures.

Ripple's version was a modern, stylized triskelion rendered in blue. The three arms suggested rotation, flow, and continuous movement — appropriate metaphors for a payment network designed to move money across borders in seconds. The circular motion implied a system that was always running, always processing, always settling transactions.

The triskelion served as the logo for both the Ripple company and the XRP token. In the early days, this dual identity made sense. Ripple Labs had created the XRP Ledger, held a large portion of the total XRP supply, and was the primary entity promoting its adoption. The company and the token were, for practical purposes, intertwined.

But this entanglement would eventually become a problem — legally, philosophically, and visually.

The Identity Problem

As the cryptocurrency market matured, the question of whether XRP was a security became one of the industry's most contentious debates. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs in December 2020, alleging that XRP was an unregistered security. Central to the legal argument was the degree to which XRP's value was tied to the efforts of Ripple Labs.

Even before the lawsuit, the Ripple-XRP relationship had created confusion. When people said "Ripple," did they mean the company, the payment protocol, the consensus mechanism, or the token? The shared branding amplified this confusion. A clear visual separation between Ripple (the company) and XRP (the token) became not just a design preference but a strategic necessity.

Ripple Labs began rebranding itself, adopting a new corporate logo that moved away from the triskelion. The company's updated mark featured a clean, lowercase "ripple" wordmark with a distinctive blue dot motif. This created space for XRP to develop its own visual identity.

The Community Takes the Lead

With Ripple stepping back from direct XRP branding, the community took an active role in defining what the token should look like. This process was more democratic and more contentious than the logo evolutions of most other cryptocurrencies.

Multiple design proposals circulated on social media, XRP community forums, and Twitter (now X). Designers submitted concepts, community members debated them, and informal polls were conducted. The process was chaotic but genuine — a real-time exercise in decentralized decision-making applied to visual identity.

The community ultimately coalesced around an X-shaped mark. The choice was logical: XRP's ticker symbol begins with X, the letter X suggests exchange and transaction, and the angular shape conveyed speed and precision. Various X designs were proposed, ranging from simple sans-serif letterforms to elaborate geometric constructions.

The Current X Logo

The XRP logo that gained widespread adoption features a bold, angular X created from overlapping geometric shapes. The design uses clean lines and sharp angles, giving it a sense of modernity and technical precision. The most common rendering is in dark gray or black, though blue — the traditional Ripple color — is also used.

One of the most discussed aspects of the X logo is its proportional system. The arms of the X are not symmetrical in the conventional sense. They are constructed using specific geometric relationships that some designers have identified as related to the golden ratio (approximately 1.618:1). Whether this was an intentional design decision or an emergent property of the geometric construction method is debated, but it gives the logo a visual harmony that feels balanced without being static.

The X mark also has a three-dimensional quality when rendered with the right shading. The overlapping forms suggest depth, as if two flat shapes are passing through each other. This visual metaphor works well for a token designed to facilitate the exchange of value between different systems — the X represents the point of intersection where one currency becomes another.

Separating Company from Token

The logo evolution from triskelion to X represents more than a design refresh. It embodies the ongoing effort to separate XRP's identity from Ripple Labs' identity. This separation has practical, legal, and philosophical dimensions.

• Practical: Exchanges, wallets, and financial institutions need a clear, unambiguous symbol for XRP that does not imply endorsement of or dependence on Ripple Labs. The X logo serves this purpose.

• Legal: In the context of the SEC lawsuit, demonstrating that XRP has an identity and community independent of Ripple Labs supports the argument that the token is not a security controlled by a single entity.

• Philosophical: The broader cryptocurrency community values decentralization. A token that shares its visual identity with a corporation undermines the narrative of decentralization. The independent X logo tells a story of community ownership.

This brand separation mirrors similar dynamics in other crypto projects. Ethereum's logo is controlled by the Ethereum Foundation, not by any company. Bitcoin's logo belongs to no one. By establishing the X as a community-owned mark, XRP aligns itself with these decentralized branding traditions.

Cultural Context of the X

The choice of X as a symbol carries rich cultural and mathematical associations. In mathematics, X is the universal symbol for an unknown variable — fitting for a token whose regulatory status was uncertain for years. In cartography, X marks the spot — appropriate for a token designed to be the meeting point for cross-border transactions. In branding, X has long been associated with futurism, technology, and transformation (SpaceX, X.com, the X Window System).

The angular aggressiveness of the letter also distinguishes XRP's branding from the rounded, friendly aesthetics of competitors. Where Dogecoin is playful and Cardano is academic, XRP's X is sharp and business-oriented. It looks like it belongs on a trading terminal or in a bank's integration documentation, which is exactly where Ripple wants XRP to appear.

Challenges of an Evolving Brand

Logo changes are risky for any brand, and they are especially risky for cryptocurrencies, where visual identity is one of the few things that distinguishes one token from another in a wallet or on an exchange listing. The transition from triskelion to X was not instantaneous. For years, both logos appeared in different contexts, creating the kind of visual inconsistency that branding professionals consider damaging.

Some exchanges were slow to update their icons. Some wallets continued using the triskelion long after the community had moved on. The coexistence of two logos reinforced the confusion that the rebrand was meant to resolve.

Over time, however, the X has become dominant. Major exchanges, financial platforms, and media outlets now use it consistently. The triskelion has been retired to history, appearing mainly in articles about XRP's past.

The Logo as a Living Document

The evolution of XRP's logo illustrates a truth about cryptocurrency branding that traditional brand managers might find unsettling: in a decentralized ecosystem, a logo is not a fixed corporate asset. It is a living symbol that evolves through community consensus, market pressures, and sometimes legal necessity.

XRP's journey from triskelion to X was messy, contested, and slow. But the result is a logo that accurately represents what XRP is today: a distinct digital asset with its own community, its own use cases, and its own identity — connected to Ripple's history but no longer defined by it.