- Cardano’s founder triggers XRP enthusiasts with ETHGate memes, straining his already battered relationship with the community.
- The XRP community fired their own shots at the Cardano boss with claims that he may have played a role in ETHGate.
- There are whispers that Ethereum may have received a soft landing from the SEC, with the network allowed to develop without regulatory clashes.
Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson has stirred the XRP hornet’s nest on X (formerly called Twitter) by poking fun at bribery claims by Ethereum to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
As the whispers around ETHGate grow louder in the XRP community, Hoskinson has waded into the matter armed with jokes in an attempt to rattle enthusiasts.
“You know my favorite part about the holidays is kicking the XRP ETHGate Hornet’s nest with easy-to-meme sound bites connected to mostly ignored nuanced points,” said Hoskinson. “It’s like the first snow of winter.”
Certain sections of the XRP community have alleged that Ethereum may have bribed the SEC to look away, leading to the refusal of the securities watchdog to designate the asset as a security. On the other hand, the SEC’s decision to tag XRP tokens as securities kickstarted a lengthy legal battle that experts say impeded XRP’s ability to reach its full potential.
XRP enthusiasts did not take Hoskinson’s jibes lightly as they fired their salvos at the Cardano founder. They retorted with memes claiming that Hoskinson may have played a role in the alleged Ethereum’s bribery of the SEC.
“It would be a huge plot twist to see you mixed up in all of this,” said one disgruntled XRP holder. “Maybe that is why you turn a blind eye to what is in front of you. These Twitter sleuths are not playing around.”
The XRP community is hinging their arguments on the fact that Hoskinson was part of Ethereum’s co-founders, but the outspoken Cardano founder refuted their claims on the grounds that he left the Ethereum project in the summer of 2014.
Hoskinson went on to describe the ETHGate as mere conspiracies, citing the near impossibility of Ethereum bribing the SEC to witch-hunt XRP. He pointed out that XRP did not dabble in smart contracts and is not a direct competitor to Ethereum, making the theory highly unlikely.
Faceoff with XRP execs
Hoskinson described the SEC’s handling of Ethereum as favoritism at best, as he pointed out that none of that activity presupposes corruption. Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz lashed out against Hoskinson’s submission, stating that the SEC’s actions amounted to a clear case of corruption.
“I would argue that a government actor showing favoritism aligned with the personal interest of themselves and their friends is corruption,” said Schwartz on X.
While Ripple Labs’ executives have opted for a coy approach at terming ETHGate as corruption, Schwartz’s tirade on X was the first time an exec publicly accused the security watchdog of corruption.
