On December 24, a heated war of words began between Ripple CTO David Schwartz and self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright. The initially innocuous discussion about the institutional acceptance of Bitcoin turned into a heated debate about the legitimacy of XRP with savage insults.
The cause of the altercation was a tweet by Wright in which he claimed that “Bitcoin can never be accepted by institutional investors until the system can be restored by a court order.”
In response, Schwartz called the tweet dumb: “Why are institutional investors the target market for peer-to-peer digital money? And what jurisdictions should respect their court orders?”
Wright then berated the Ripple CTO as ignorant when it comes to finance, legal issues, institutional investment banking, and Bitcoin in general. In addition, he further argued that it was impossible to have a logical debate with anyone involved with XRP and accused Schwartz of running a “useless pump-and-dump scheme.”
Wright also claimed that XRP actually only creates 100 TPS, not 1,500 TPS as advertised by Ripple: “The problem with any debate with anyone involved with XRP is that none of them can actually debate anything logically. David Schwartz should be able to provide logical answers. Yet, even the cult leader cannot do anything more than insults.”
In the aftermath, Schwartz called his counterpart a “despicable coward” who sues people for sharing his opinion. He added that Wright tries to back up his nonsensical claims with “irrelevant ad hominem.”
Furthermore, Schwartz explained that he was just pointing out a dumb argument that Wright could not defend.
Craig, anyone can see the thread. You made a very dumb argument. I pointed out it was dumb. You opted to raise completely irrelevant criticisms of me rather than defend your own indefensible nonsense. You’re now on a pathetic tirade of deflection. Defend your claim or abandon it.
Wright Wants To Support SEC In Lawsuit Against Ripple
The grand finale of the dispute was a threat by Wright that he will publish an “academic analysis” of XRP to a publication standard in 2023, which he will provide free of charge to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as support in its legal battle with Ripple.
“Basically, we’re showing how dishonest the system is. Enjoy what’s coming. This will stop the constant XRP scams,” Wright wrote.
A short time later, Wright followed up, accusing Ripple of not showing how its technology is used outside of paid trials.
If any Ripple product is implemented between banks the requirements are that these agreements are published within the frameworks for each of the organisations above. Where are the agreements with Ripple?
It would seem that Ripple make literally hundreds of claims and yet no evidence of a single production system existing can be found.
Wright also claimed that one of Ripple’s biggest partners, SBI Holdings, is paid for marketing. “I’ve had dinner with Kitao-san on multiple occasions. No Ripple implementation has ever been produced. Rather, Ripple made an investment,” the self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor claimed.
As of press time, Schwartz had not yet addressed these allegations. However, the last word has probably not yet been spoken.
Meanwhile, the XRP price is trading at $0.3707, rising almost 6% since Boxing Day.
Featured image from iStock, Chart from TradingView.com