Vitalik Buterin Criticizes XRP, Ripple CTO Hits Back

Ripple’s Chief Technical Officer, David Schwartz, has compared miners on the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks with eBay shareholders. He said he believes that it makes both Bitcoin and Ethereum securities as well.

From Innocently Tweeting

Schwartz did not consider the Ethereum co-founder’s take on XRP as a light issue. The discussion started in connection with the recent limit placed on altcoin purchases by Ontario’s crypto exchange. The regulator put a $30,000 limit on buying altcoins and it affects Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin.

The Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded to a tweet as he applauded the Ethereum community. He praised the community for fighting back against regulatory declarations that seem to raise ETH above other legal cryptocurrencies.

Bankless.eth founder, David Hoffman, tweeted a response at Buterin where he said he would not mind if there was a restriction on XRP. It was to this tweet from Hoffman that Buterin stated that XRP lost every right to protection after they attempted to throw Ethereum under the bus under the guise of being controlled by China.

Buterin’s response was taken up by the XRP community on Twitter. The conversation was later joined by Schwartz personally. 

Buterin’s tweet made reference to Ripple’s line of difference in its current legal tussle with the US Security and Exchange Commission. Ripple’s legal team said before the court that XRP should not be considered a security. The legal team’s argument was that Bitcoin and Ethereum are similar to XRP and they referred to those two cryptocurrencies as Chinese-controlled cryptocurrencies.

Is the SEC Really Biased?

Ripple is in court in response to the SEC’s suit that accuses it of unauthorized issuance and sale of XRP assets. 

Schwartz stated claims earlier made by Ripple’s legal team that Bitcoin and Ethereum are securities. He also went ahead to compare their miners with eBay shareholders. He said he does not think it is totally correct to create an analogy between company shareholders and PoW miners.

He said that in the same way shareholders on eBay get paid from the residual buyer and seller frictions, the same goes for BTC and ETH miners.

Schwartz ended his tweet in response to Buterin with a question where he asked if security should be determined by the market or the government.

The security issue concerning Ethereum was hotly discussed during the lawsuit. Ripple made claims that the SEC has a bias against their company but it favors Ethereum. Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse stated during an interview in 2021 that the SEC worked for Ethereum to beat XRP to the second position.