Ripple’s Director of Developer Relations, Matt Hamilton, has claimed on social media that XRP was created by Bitcoin developers as a “better” version of the cryptocurrency once they realized “bitcoin’s energy usage was not scalable,” and that XRP’s use cases are “basically the same as Bitcoin.
Hamilton’s words came as he discussed the cryptocurrency with other users on the microblogging platform Twitter and argued that XRP is not a centralized cryptocurrency. During the conversation, he said XRP is “decentralized just like Bitcoin.”
Hamilton also pointed out that there are around 150 validators on the cryptocurrency’s blockchain – the XRP Ledger – and that transactions on it are public, just like they are on the Bitcoin blockchain. In a separate tweet, the Ripple executive argued XRP isn’t controlled by the company, and that XRP Ledger was “the first DEX [decentralized exchange]” and as such the XRP Ledger “really was the first ‘DeFi’ application.”
The executive shares data showing that XRP Ledger nodes are distributed throughout the world in a bid to dispel rumours claiming that Ripple operated most of the network’s nodes and that it was an extremely centralized blockchain. Ripple is, however, a company meant to help promote XRP.
Last month, Ripple hired former Mastercard executive Sendi Young as Managing Director of its European operations in a bid to expand Ripple’s global financial network technology RippleNet, which uses the XRP token for its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution.
The value of XRP has notably been affected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) lawsuit against Ripple and two of its executives, alleging they “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.”
According to at least one analyst, Ripple settling its lawsuit with the SEC could lead to an XRP supply shock, which would presumably lead to a price surge as demand would remain the same, while supply plunged.
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