A multi-year conflict between XRP promoters and Bitcoin maximalists has boiled over into one other public struggle between Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Senator Cynthia Lummis, chair of the Senate’s Digital Belongings Subcommittee.
Yesterday, Garlinghouse admitted that Lummis canceled and refused to reschedule their assembly in Washington, DC.
Garlinghouse was on Capitol Hill to advocate for XRP-friendly stablecoins and market construction payments. Lummis, however, prefers bitcoin (BTC) and different stablecoins that compete with Ripple’s RLUSD.
The incident wasn’t merely a logistical hiccup. Underlying ideological and monetary tensions have famously divided the Ripple and Bitcoin communities for years.
Garlinghouse determined to take Lummis’ cancellation public, incomes over 1.6 million impressions for his declare of disappointment. Lummis, for her half, hasn’t even bothered to reply publicly.
One pro-XRP lawyer commented on the cancellation, “Some of her comments put her alongside some of the worst Bitcoin maxis around.” He additionally blamed her for creating an unfair enjoying area in authorities as a result of “she is a champion of bitcoin exceptionalism.”
Learn extra: Ripple went all-in on politics and gained billions
Ripple versus the maxis
Bitcoin exceptionalism or maximalism is the assumption that BTC is superior and will displace different crypto property, together with XRP. Maximalists have a specific grudge in opposition to Ripple that has been constructing for years.
Certainly, Lummis has positioned herself as a BTC champion, advocating for a failed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) invoice that might have legislated the US authorities’s buy of 1 million BTC.
Though not a strict BTC maximalist, she typically cozies as much as maximalists and speaks to maximalist audiences frequently.
Furthermore, Lummis’ son-in-law, Will Cole, has supported maximalist views and criticized Ripple’s founders. He has referred to as XRP a “centralized joke” and has blamed Ripple since 2021 for conducting “a massive premine with founders greedier than any central bank.”
Though there’s no proof that Lummis shares her son-in-law’s views, the general public criticism from Cole, Lummis’ well-publicized alliances with Bitcoiners, plus her private disclosures about investing in BTC actually open the door to a possible bias in her remedy of Garlinghouse.
Up to now few years, XRP tokenholders have been specializing in politics and making billions within the course of. Garlinghouse, like many different XRP followers, is actively utilizing Capitol Hill to his benefit.
By taking his spat with Lummis public and alluring criticism of her potential anti-XRP bias, he’s persevering with the lobbying marketing campaign that has coincided with the value of XRP rallying fivefold up to now three years.
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