Self-proclaimed Satoshi slams XRP as ‘useless pump and dump scheme’

As Ripple is in the eye of a storm facing the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a court case after the regulator sued the blockchain company for illegally selling over $1.3 billion worth of XRP tokens, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto has launched a verbal assault on the digital asset.

Indeed, Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist claiming to be the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin (BTC) and the author of its whitepaper, attacked Ripple CTO and one of the original XRP ledger architects David Schwartz in a series of tweets culminating in Wright berating XRP as a ‘useless pump and dump scheme’ on December 25.

Twitter altercation

Schwartz threw some punches as well after the whole exchange started with Wright stating his view that “Bitcoin cannot ever be adopted by institutional investors until the system is able to be recovered under a legal court order,” which Schwartz referred to as “dumb for so many reasons.”

This is so dumb for so many reasons. Why are "institutional investors" the target market for peer-to-peer digital cash? And which jurisidictions should have their court orders respected? https://t.co/HGixvyfO4H
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) December 24, 2022

In the ensuing squabble, Wright said that Schwartz “never really understood Bitcoin” and that he was “also so far from understanding anything to do [with] Bitcoin that he thinks Ripple is related to a blockchain in some way,” adding that:

Then again, he designed XRP… the most useless pump and dump scheme in this entire industry.
— Dr Craig S Wright (@Dr_CSWright) December 25, 2022

Meanwhile, XRP has been on the receiving end of criticism from other industry participants, including Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson who accused the XRP community of spreading conspiracy theories about the case against the SEC, as well as Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin who said XRP was “still completely centralized.”

Wright controversy

On the other hand, Wright is known for not selectively choosing words in his public appearances, including in the interview with The Sunday Project, during which he cursed at presenter Hamish Macdonald multiple times after being asked to show proof he was the mysterious Bitcoin creator.

Earlier in April, Wright said he was going to eventually sell all of his Bitcoin, which reportedly amounts to around 1.1 million BTC, “because it has no utility,” in his view, raising fears of a 51% attack that could endanger the Bitcoin network, as Finbold reported.

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