Ripple's former director of developer relations, Matt Hamilton, has expressed his position on why XRP has not gained the same popularity and acceptance as Bitcoin (BTC) after being asked by one of his followers.
At the moment, Bitcoin is in first place in the ranking of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap, and XRP is in sixth place.
Two reasons why XRP did not repeat Bitcoin's success
Hamilton responded based on two points, the first of which was that BTC had a first mover advantage. Recall that XRP was launched three years after BTC, in 2012, by David Schwartz, Arthur Britto and Jed McCaleb.
As Hamilton says, at that time, 11 years ago, no one understood anything about asset tokenization or decentralized exchanges, which were available in XRPL. "XRP Ledger was ahead of its time," the developer concluded.
The second reason, according to Hamilton, is information attacks on XRP. First, fear, uncertainty and doubt about XRP were stirred up by Bitcoin maximalists, and then the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) got involved, he says.
Recall that even before the SEC litigation, Ripple had been penalized by another regulator on charges of unregistered sales of XRP, as well as the violation of conducting an anti-money laundering program. The case then ended in a settlement in which Ripple Labs and the XRP II Foundation were fined $700,000.
Arman Shirinyan
Yuri Molchan
