Ripple CTO and XRP Holder’s Lawyer Slam Vitalik Buterin

08/20/2022

2 minutes read

2022.08.20 01:18

Vitalik Buterin, the Canada-based co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), has found himself in a controversy after his recent tweet which said, “XRP already lost their right to protection when they tried to throw us under the bus as “China-controlled” imo.”

XRP already lost their right to protection when they tried to throw us under the bus as “China-controlled” imo:https://t.co/t6cbMtjsEV

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 17, 2022

Recently, a 30,000-Canadian-dollar limit was placed on altcoins purchases — which excluded ETH. Buterin’s show of support to the ETH community pushing against regulations that privilege ETH over other legitimate cryptocurrencies, excluding Ripple (XRP), wasn’t taken kindly by David Schwartz, chief technology officer of Ripple, and John Deaton, the XRP holder’s lawyer.

Schwartz directly addressed Buterin and asked, “Do you think this debate should be settled by the government or the market, @VitalikButerin? This quotation wasn’t pulled from some attempt by Ripple to get the government to regulate ETH, was it?”

He added, “Just as eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) stockholders want to leave as much friction between buyers and sellers as they can because that’s their revenue stream, so do miners in ETH and BTC. That’s part of why they have higher fees than XRP.”

According to Schwartz, it’s perfectly fair to analogize miners in PoW systems to stockholders in companies. “Just as eBay’s stockholders earn from the residual friction between buyers and sellers that eBay does not remove, so do miners in ETH and BTC,” said the XRP CTO.

Although Buterin hasn’t acknowledged any of the statements attributed to him, Schwartz concluded with, “The government should punish projects that disagree with our narrative” seems pretty on brand for ETH.”

Deaton Called Buterin’s Comment Shameful And Disgusting

“The more I think about your shameful and disgusting comment and considering you haven’t deleted or clarified it, I realize you didn’t misspeak,” tweeted Deaton in response to Buterin. “This was an immature hateful comment directed at a community of innocent digital asset holders and not Ripple.”

So with that said young man, on behalf of 72K #XRPHolders, I say be a good and quack off.

— John E Deaton (212K Followers Beware Imposters) (@JohnEDeaton1) August 18, 2022

He continued, “Many people will not pay your comment much attention. But for those of us who’ve been exhaustingly fighting tribalism and believe in a multi-chain world of interoperability, your comments are truly demoralizing.”

Talking about XRP’s ongoing case with the SEC, Deaton that even Ripple’s biggest critics “have recognized the SEC’s overreach.” Deaton talked about the thousands of emails he received from people “who were devastated financially when the SEC alleged that XRP is a security no matter who sells it.”

He further slammed Buterin and said, “Just like any other crypto community, XRP has some holders who may be overly hostile. But like most communities, it is made up of hard-working regular people who seek financial freedom for a better life. Your XRP comment is a slap in their faces.”

On the Flipside

Deaton also pointed out that Buterin said on video that he chose Switzerland to specifically avoid U.S. regulations from the SEC.

Why You Should Care

Buterin’s attack on XRP isn’t new. In 2020, Buterin tweeted, “Looks like the Ripple/XRP team is sinking to new levels of strangeness. They’re claiming that their shitcoin should not be called security for *public policy reasons*, namely because Bitcoin and Ethereum are “Chinese-controlled.”