Near the end of 2018, far after the all-time highs of Bitcoin, XRP, and other cryptocurrencies, it was revealed that Ben Askren — who at the time was a prominent UFC fighter and martial artist — was a fan of digital assets, specifically Litecoin (LTC). Askren in December 2018 published the below tweet:
Just got to talk to the man @SatoshiLite !!!! Awesome vision and passion, can’t wait to see him push LTC forward.
— Funky (@Benaskren) December 7, 2018
Later, he was seen wearing a Litecoin-branded shirt and the Litecoin Foundation even sponsored a UFC event.
Since then, Askren has been interacting with the industry, delving into the cryptocurrency space after he retired last year.
Aside from Litecoin and Bitcoin, Askren has largely ignored the other digital assets, until today anyway.
Askren: XRP is a Scam
In a tweet published on Tuesday, the former UFC fighter said that he thinks “XRP is a scam,” responding to one of his followers who said that Askren’s silence on XRP means the cryptocurrency “will take a long time, if ever, to moon.”
I think XRP is a scam https://t.co/ye3E53dM3E
— Funky (@Benaskren) January 28, 2020
Askren is the latest prominent industry commentator to have bashed XRP.
Tone Vays — a former Wall Street trader turned Bitcoin analyst — said the following in an interview BlockTV:
The Ripple token itself has absolutely no place. It is now, more than ever before, just a security of the Ripple corporation… Everything about XRP is bad.
He even distinctly called XRP a “scam coin” on one occasion. As to why this is the case, the prominent commentator has cited a number of things, such as his sentiment that Ripple Labs created the company, XRP has a utility that is “completely fictional,” XRP is a unregulated security and is “not decentralized,” and much more.
The SEC is bringing Thor's Hammer… The next #Bitcoin Law Review is gonna be epic… Come at me $XRP Army "of the Brain Dead" your scam coin should never have existed #Ripple Corp! pic.twitter.com/MX03F9QMqA
— Tone Vays (#ActivateTaproot) (@ToneVays) August 14, 2019
The scam argument recently gained more steam with news that Ripple has an intent to list its shares on public exchanges. Though, far from everyone is convinced Ripple’s intent to list shares on public exchanges automatically makes XRP a scam or a useless asset.
Not a Scam
Not everyone is convinced the asset is a scam though. Mati Greenspan of Quantum Economics, a prominent cryptocurrency commentator, said that he believes XRP is providing good technology, backed by a strong team at Ripple. For instance, Ripple has On-Demand Liquidity, which adopting companies say has allowed their clients to pay upwards of 80% less in fees for remittance payments and other financial processes that require inter-bank, international data, and money transfer.
Good tech. Strong team. Probably the only crypto project regularly closing deals with financial institutions. https://t.co/x338RGGAlC
— Mati Greenspan (tweets ≠ financial advice) (@MatiGreenspan) December 30, 2019
Photo by m wrona on Unsplash