XRP takes cover as Ripple’s CTO responds to this controversy

• The Ripple CTO addressed the talks about the preferential treatment Ripple had toward XRP holders.
• Weighted sentiment remained negative while social dominance jumped.

The heat Ripple [XRP] has been facing has not just been limited to its issue with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Although unpopular like the former, some market players have repeatedly accused XRP of being a centralized entity. 

How much are 1,10,100 XRPs worth today?

Ripple keeps explaining, no evidence

The discussion arose again on 24 September, as a certain “Wolf of Golden Street” asked Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz about the centralized XRP claims. To buttress his point, the pseudonymous X (formerly Twitter) user, noted that Bitcoin [BTC] maximalist Max Keiser, had been at the forefront of the accusation.

Schwartz, in his response, mentioned that the claims were random assertions with no evidence to back them up. He said,

“I haven’t been able to find a coherent claim to answer. Any particular tweet that makes an actual claim? They all just seem like random assertions mixed with insults.”

However, Wolf of Golden Street was not one to give up. He went ahead and asked Schwartz to clarify the claims that Ripple was only committed to empowering the top 1% XRP holders instead of the entire cohort.

Schwartz responded, saying that the 1% claim had no basis, and ownership of XRP could be transparent and could be tracked on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). While the CTO admitted that XRP had a centralized design, he mentioned other reasons while referencing Bitcoin, that the token itself is not centralized.

1.Does XRP really empower the top 1% who is controlling the main XRP system.

I’m not sure I understand this claim. The top 1% of what exactly? XRP empowers anyone who want to use the ledger to track the ownership and exchange of assets. What kind of control is he talking about…

— David “JoelKatz” Schwartz (@JoelKatz) September 24, 2023

Eyes are back on XRP

A look at on-chain data from the XRPL showed that this lack of clarity may have affected the XRP sentiment. At press time, the weighted sentiment was -0.061. Weighted sentiment shows the unique social volume attributed to a cryptocurrency.

When the metric is positive, it means that there are more positive comments than negative ones in relation to the asset. Therefore, XRP’s weighted sentiment being negative suggested that XRP was dealing with more negative comments than positive ones.

Source: Santiment

As per the social dominance, XRP seemed to be getting back the attention it had lost. Previously, XRP’s social dominance was down to 1.18%. However, the metric had risen to 1.80% as of this writing.

The rise in social dominance suggested that there was more discussion relating to the asset than there was before. Compared to other cryptocurrencies in the top 100, XRP looks to have grabbed a good share of the assets being talked about often.

Realistic or not, here’s XRP’s market cap in BTC terms

However, the circulation in the last 24 hours had fallen to 153.48 million. This meant that fewer XRP tokens had been used within the period. On the positive side, the token may not experience any notable selling pressure.

Source: Santiment