And I'm pretty sure they paid Ryan Fugger for the name Ripple, which originally applied to his burgeoning, hippy-dippy decentralized payment system that did not require a blockchain.
I can't think of a better example of Silicon Valley's famous "disruption" than that:
1. Dude starts building some software to make it more convenient for close-knit communities of people to share goods and services with each other. In other words-- a good faith effort from a dev to add some digital convenience to happy little sharing economies.
2. Some people riding the blockchain bullshit train see value in the name "Ripple" and image associated with that name
3. Said people buy that name from Ryan
4. Original spirit of Ripple is lost to history, and a long, boring drama over preseeded coins, what "decentralization" actually means, whether it really applies to XRP, positioning as the international payment system against every other blockchain idiot trying to do the same, etc.
In other words-- we go from this:
"Hm, I wonder if graph theory can be used to reinforce local economies"
To this:
"There's gold in them there transnational borders, boys! Yeeeha!"