David Schwartz, Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer has hit back at Charles Hoskinson over his defense of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) comments on Ethereum (ETH) over other projects.
Popularly called ETHgate in digital asset circles, the issue sparked off following the SEC’s case against Ripple (XRP) and a renewed regulatory onslaught on altcoins suggesting that many can be viewed as securities under the Commission’s purview.
The controversy heightened after a draft of the popular Hinman documents was released, involving SEC director William Hinman making a case for Ethereum not being a security.
On Oct 8, Cardano’s co-founder Hoskinson spoke on the ETHgate conspiracy theories in an AMA session arguing that there was no proof of such and the actions of the authorities were not based on corruption.
Distancing the acts from corruption, he describes the incidents as favoritism which led to backlash from the wider community.
“None of that activity presupposes corruption, just favoritism… this how the internet works, and it can’t be fixed now.”
Hoskinson went on to differentiate between the business models of Ethereum and Ripple adding that the latter serves different customers and is without smart contracts.
“Doesn’t that dilute your entire goal of making Ethereum not a security to also do that? Are you so scared of XRP that’s going to happen? You really believe that? If you do, you’re a crazy person in my book,” he added.
Lastly, he stated that so far, pro-ETHgate backers have no proof of anything asking for emails or meetings of any alleged corruption between officials.
Schwartz and the community respond
Schwartz criticized the Cardano executive’s line of thought adding that if the action of the government constitutes favoritism for the benefit of people, it can be viewed as corruption.
“I would argue that a government actor showing favoritism aligned with the personal interests of themselves and their friends is corruption.”
Members of the crypto community, specifically the XRP Army came out in support of Schwartz in the X (formerly Twitter) comment section calling the events “nothing but corruption.”
Other conspiracy theories were also brought forward concerning Hoskinson’s time at Ethereum alleging that he might have things to hide.
Hoskinson was among the eight founding members of Ethereum before and served briefly as the company’s chief executive before leaving the company in 2014 to set up Cardano after he fell out with other founders.
Recently, Hoskinson criticized the media for giving the embattled former CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried a free pass with his sympathizers pushing narratives of the series of events that led to the fall of the exchange as his mistake
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