XRP Has Experienced One of the Biggest Comebacks

Recently, Bitcoin (BTC) maximalist Pierre Rochard triggered a debate with his criticism of XRP. In a post on X, he criticized how the token is apparently made from thin air, suggesting that Ripple can just inflate its supply on a whim.

XRP has experienced one of the biggest comebacks in the post-2024 US election bull cycle. The token climbed from below $1 to over $3 in its latest peak, nearly breaking its all-time high seven years ago.

However, it also painted a giant target sign on the digital asset as many have questioned its relevance and economy.

Recently, Bitcoin (BTC) maximalist Pierre Rochard triggered a debate with his criticism of XRP. In a post on X, he criticized how the token is apparently made from thin air.

The former Vice President of Research at Riot Platforms (NASDAQ:RIOT) also said that XRP is nothing but a mechanism to sustain Ripple’s operating cash inflow.

In other words, holders are not really investing in the token. Instead, they are only fueling the company’s blatant cash grab. On the other hand, Ripple doesn’t owe XRP holders anything post-sale.

Rochard’s statement is a follow-up to his previous post saying that XRP is not a security because Ripple does not owe its holders utility or any obligation.

Hence, the business could just dump its supply anytime it wants to, and XRP holders couldn’t do anything but join them in dumping the token.

"It's not a security because they don't owe you anything. They can sell their coins and you'll follow in a chain reaction. They can make as many coins as they want and no one can stop them," he added.

In response, Chief Technology Officer of Ripple David Schwartz confirmed that the company acts on its own and shareholders’ interests. XRP holders shouldn’t rely on or expect it to decide in a way that’s detrimental to its goals and his investor’s financial welfare.

However, the Ripple official refuted the former Riot VP’s claim that Ripple can inflate XRP’s supply anytime it wants to via its influence on the consensus of the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

Schwartz clarified that no network rule in the XRPL code would allow the activity. The Ripple CTO explained that the network rules enforced by the nodes of XRPL particularly prohibit the event from happening while calling the former Riot official’s contentions nonsense.

In addition, Schwartz pointed out that unlimited token creation is impossible in XRPL because of its sophisticated invariant checking system. The same function prevents even software bugs from minting new tokens, similar to what happened during Bitcoin’s value overflow incident in August 2010 and the DAO hack in June 2016.

Along the way, a Ripple developer operating under the alias “Vet” on X also reinforced Schwartz’s arguments.

This was perfectly demonstrated during XRPL’s outage last month, wherein its system eventually self-repaired, and no assets were reportedly lost during the event.

Moreover, Hamilton highlighted the fact that due to XRPL’s invariant checks, there was never an incident in XRP history that resulted in the manipulation of its supply, like the infamous Bitcoin incident more than a decade ago.