Ripple exec: If XRP is the banker coin, then Bitcoin’s the drug dealer coin

• Ripple Labs executive Matt Hamilton mentioned that the SEC is picking and choosing favorite cryptocurrencies over others like XRP. 
• Around 8 percent of Bitcoin’s total supply is held by institutional investors while less than 1 percent XRP is in the institutional purse. 

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The legal battle between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs’ XRP has attracted a lot of comments over the past months. While some see the SEC action against XRP as justifiable, a lot more criticize the attack. With the ongoing war, the SEC has shown different angles of its stance on cryptocurrencies. As a matter of fact, some members of the crypto community are of the belief that the Commission favors popular coins like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) over other crypto assets. 

Ripple Labs exec emphasizes favoritism from SEC 

In a recent interview, the director of Developer Relations at Ripple, Matt Hamilton, also pointed out favoritism from the SEC. He made reference to the director of the Division of Corporate Finance, William Hinman. He claimed that Hinman in particular acted in the same manner. 

Furthermore, Hamilton stated the various stereotypes related to XRP. Hence, he claimed that XRP has no intrinsic value. According to him, XRP is mostly viewed as a “banker’s coin” that focuses on satisfying financial institutions’ interests. Also, a lot of people do not consider the coin as a real cryptocurrency. This is majorly due to the allegations about its developers. There are allegations that the XRP developers are focused more on the ledger than the cryptocurrency. 

Speaking on the XRP ledger, the director said that the ledger stores the complete status of every account on the network in each block. Moreover, financial institutions like Santander Bank and American Express were the early adopters of the XRP coin. This happened before the serial adoption of Bitcoin by institutions. 

During the interview, Hamilton stated:

If you call XRP the banker coin, then Bitcoin’s the drug dealer coin… as a percentage of total supply more Bitcoin is held by banks than XRP is held by banks at this exact period of time.

Institutions hold less than 1 percent of XRP

Speaking further, the director discussed the “double standards” of BTC supporters who glorify Bitcoin’s institutional use case and investments while criticizing XRP for the exact same reason. Currently, institutional investors hold about 8 percent of the total supply of Bitcoin. On the other hand, Coinshares noted that XRP held by institutions is less than 1 percent. 

Related: Institutional crypto investments continue to grow with investors taking advantage of Dip

Additionally, Hamilton spoke on XRP’s classification as being decentralized. Firstly, the cryptocurrency is totally pre-mined and does not have a mining mechanism in place. Notably, Ripple owns a large quantity of the total XRP. According to the director of Developer Relations at Ripple, the difference between centralization ad decentralization is subjective. Hamilton explained:

Ripple owned and operated about 5% of the nodes on the XRP ledger… that doesn’t give them any power on the XRP ledger. In fact, if the community decided [it]could actually vote an amendment on the XRP ledger that would effectively burn Ripple’s XRP.