February is shaping up to be a winning month for me and Stellar.org. Not only was my birthday last week, we also had two great pieces of news. Poetically, one represents the start of a new exciting chapter and the other the end of a longstanding issue.

First, we announced an integration that will bring free money transfer to 200 villages in Nigeria and reach over 300,000 people. This has the potential to massively impact lives. And it is the first real-world example of the Stellar protocol (or I believe any blockchain technology) being used for humanitarian purposes at scale. This also starts to show what the Stellar network can do and how it will benefit people. We are very excited about the rest of 2016.

This week also sees the end of a longstanding issue. Stellar and I have finally reached a settlement with Ripple in the ongoing dispute between the parties. The settlement shows that Ripple’s claims were entirely baseless. Ripple has conceded in exchange for Stellar and I agreeing to settle the litigation.

Stellar receives all the funds Ripple had inappropriately frozen in Bitstamp, proving all their claims against us were frivolous. When I left Ripple, I agreed to (and Ripple’s lawyer sent an email confirming) sale limitations applied to XRP held by me or in the name of my children. But then Ripple — in direct contradiction of its prior confirmation — claimed sales by other people violated my agreement, and caused Bitstamp to freeze $1 MM that belonged to Stellar. As a result of this settlement, the entire $1 MM was released to Stellar — proving we are correct.

Ripple pays all of Bitstamp legal fees and is responsible for all financial settlement with certain other parties. This also shows that the entire basis for Ripple’s and Bitstamp’s lawsuit against me was frivolous.

I fully complied with the previous agreement but now I have better terms for the amount of XRP I’m able to sell. The new rate is a percent of daily volume. This results in a higher limit given recent trading volume and allows for significant increases in my selling ability as volume increases, something that was not possible before with the prior agreement’s flat dollar limit. To effectuate this, I have escrowed my XRP.

I can finally donate 2B of my XRP to charitable causes , something I was unable to do under the prior agreement. This allows me to continue to fund more charities like Give Directly and MIRI which has been something I was actively doing prior to the previous agreement.

As part of this settlement, I finally sold the rest of my Ripple equity . Ripple was required to find a buyer for me at a great price.

The results of this settlement agreement show that I fully complied with the terms of the previous agreement. Personally, I am excited to see the conclusion of these baseless allegations.

The announcement of integration with rural communities and end of the Ripple baseless allegations means that Stellar can continue to move forward on its humanitarian mission unencumbered by Ripple-related legal woes. And I am happy to say Stellar will be using the funds to continue its rural financial access programs. I wish the Ripple community the very best and it is time to refocus all my energies on bringing Stellar to those who need it to change their economic lives.