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- Ripple proponents argue that there was no ICO, the network is decentralized with 100+ third-party validators.
- They further noted that Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin is seen not as a retreat but a strategic expansion, fully integrated into the XRPL ecosystem.
Custodia Bank CEO Caitlin Long expressed doubts about Ripple and XRP Ledger (XRPL), soon after the Brad Garlinghouse firm applied for a license as National Trust Bank. She said that it’s not a decentralized project, its initial token release wasn’t transparent, and that the platform doesn’t align with modern finance.
Her remarks have enraged the ‘XRP Army’ and Ripple executives, who contend that she has missed the important facts.
Here are five reasons that critics highlighted to prove Long’s XRPL evaluation faulty:
1. No Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for XRP
Long has National Trust Bank Ripple token distribution that occurred early on in its life cycle as an instance of a network that “extracted money up front,” implying that the institution could never trust it. “That was the first of the ICOs in their case,” she said.
However, XRPL validator Vet refuted this, noting: “Ripple never did an ICO. XRP was worth nothing when the XRP Ledger started, and all 100 billion [XRP] were put into the genesis account.” Unlike Ethereum, which had an official ICO in 2014, XRP was not sold in an ICO at all but was mineable over time.
2. Decentralization of XRPL Is Frequently Misinterpreted
Banks have long been hesitant to adopt Ripple as they feel that it is a centralized network. Nonetheless, the XRPL community has vouched for a decentralized infrastructure that entails more than 1,000 nodes and over 100 validators, many of which are operated by third parties, as mentioned in our earlier report.
Vet argued that “there is nobody preventing you from joining the network, running infrastructure, or even forking the codebase.” The consensus mechanism enables validators to reach an agreement on the ledger stat,e but not really under the exclusive control of one participant, even Ripple.
3. Ethereum Too Raised Funds Via Bitcoin
Long added that Ethereum and Bitcoin are considered to be “trusted” because they did not raise much or any money in advance. But Vet pointed out that Ethereum did indeed raise funds as “Bitcoin was taken to get ETH distributed to the initial investors.”
The critics maintain that Long contextualizes the financing of Ethereum to underrepresent its backing and overstate that of Ripple.
4. The Stablecoin Does Not Mean Defeat
The Custodia Bank CEO described Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin as a shift in strategy. She terms the stablecoin as “an admission that the base layer blockchain didn’t get the adoption they were looking for.” On the contrary, the XRP community perceives the switch as an addition.
RLUSD is issued on XRPL itself, which means that it leverages its native decentralized exchange and payment rails. Ripple CTO David Schwartz diplomatically replied,
I’m available whenever you want to chat about the facts… our stablecoin RLUSD, the XRP Ledger and its native token XRP.
5. The History of XRPL Shows Constant Growth
Although Long claimed that Ripple has not done much, even though it has been in the field longer than most of its rivals. However, Ripple enthusiasts regard the strong developer community, increasing number of tokenized assets, and continued institutional use. Also, Vet highlighted, “The very first DEX and tokenization platform in existence — the XRPL.”
