• Ripple’s CTO was forced to clarify a 2017 statement that claims XRP cannot be “dirt” cheap, however, a community member thinks his answer deviates from his earlier position. 

• The same happened on March 30 when Schwartz had to come up to explain the context within which this statement was made. 

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Ripple, David Schwartz, is once again at the center of a social media banter as an X user boldly calls him out over a post he made in 2017. 

For context, Schwartz tweeted seven years ago that XRP “cannot” be “dirt” cheap.

It *can’t* be dirt cheap. That doesn’t make any sense. If XRP costs $1, they’d need a million XRP which would cost $1 million. If XRP cost a million dollars, they’d need one XRP which would, again, cost $1 million.

In a follow-up tweet, the Ripple CTO explained that people could now buy a million-dollar house with Bitcoins. While this was also possible at $300, Schwartz clarified that it would, however, be too expensive to be practical as it could end up stirring the market in a significant shift. 

According to our data, XRP was trading at $0.24 at the time of this tweet. A couple of months later, the asset recorded an incredible surge to hit $3.8 before embarking on a steady bearish reversal to almost 90% below that all-time high. For about six years now, the price has been unable to return to its peak as it struggles to even recover half of its lost value. Years down the lane, a member of the XRP community has reminded Schwartz of his emphatic statement in 2017 and requested an update. 

Schwartz Explains His Post on XRP

In response, Schwartz re-emphasized his statement that it still costs $1 to buy enough XRP to make a $1 payment. Unfortunately, this answer “did not sit well” with another user identified as “Riaan Roux,” who replied brutally. 

According to this user, the answer far deviates from his previous position. 

What a brainless twat answer. Deviating from his previous comment. Manipulate much? Is lying a hobby, or do you do it as your career…..just realised what the answer is to my own question. It’s the latter, in case you weren’t sure.— Riaan Roux (@DubiousRoux) July 5, 2024

However, Schwartz still maintained that his answer expresses the same idea. Interestingly, this is not the first time the Ripple CTO had to come out to defend his years-long post. 

On March 30, Schwartz was also forced to defend his post after a follower asked for clarification on what he exactly meant. At that time, the CTO provided a little context to his statement, claiming he was merely responding to an argument that Ripple would like to see the price of XRP go down to fulfill its goal of enabling cheaper payments. 

I did say that the higher the price of an asset with a fixed supply, the more practical it is to use that asset for payments or as an intermediary asset. The argument I was responding to at the time was that Ripple would like to see the price of XRP go down because XRP would be more useful for payments if it were cheaper. That argument is nonsensical.

At press time, XRP had fallen outside the top five largest capped coins to “sit” at the seventh position. Currently, the asset has also declined by 8% in the past week to trade at $0.43. 

Regardless of the ongoing downward trend, our earlier report suggests that the next direction of the XRP price would largely depend on the outcome of the SEC vs Ripple court case. 

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