Photo belowPhoto above - Is XRP the new Bitcoin? Is Bitcoin the new gold? What happens if you try to buy stuff with them? Thank you for clarifying this, Gus . . .

The link below is to an article written by Robert Breedlove. He describes himself as an ex-hedge fund manager, Bitcoin Philosopher, and "freedom maximalist". He loves Bitcoin and but is cool towards US dollars. He’s not a billionaire yet but still working at it. Mr. Breedlove’s premise is that an exchange traded fund called “Bitwise” (trading symbol XRP) is "a coordinated scheme against retail investors.” He specifically takes on Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, formerly of Yahoo, AOL, and “Sendit” as the mastermind. Mr. Garlinghouse was also the defendant in an earlier SEC lawsuit concerning Ripple. (spoiler alert – Ripple changed their marketing and legal strategies since then). See links below.

So now XRP is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Coinbase accuses Ripple of “selling XRP to ignorant retail investors. They’re mobilizing a bot army on social media to promote XRP as the next Bitcoin, and people are getting taken to the cleaners.” (actual quote from the link).

It’s not easy to tell if this is true from actual XRP company data. The current share price is $13-15, down half from it’s all time high of $26 in January. The XRP fund hasn’t even been listed on the NYSE for a year. Yahoo Finance comes up with zero when trying to assess XRP revenue, shares outstanding, market cap, or price-earnings ratio. And this thing is publicly traded on the exchange.

Let’s focus on the XRP “bot army” which is vacuuming up $500 million in investor money each quarter. Ripple has allegedly been doing this for the past 10 years, well before they won their arm-wrestling match with the SEC and legally became an exchange traded token fund.

Crypto fanboys are going to have strong opinions on this article. Some believe Bitcoin itself is a scam, just like XRP. Others believe the SEC lawsuit against XRP is part of the reason Trump got elected – it helped mobilize campaign contributions from crypto big shots. The 2026 “Clarity” act – if it ever comes to a vote - will define how XRP and Bitcoin and the other 10,000 cryptocurrencies eventually get regulated. But the Clarity bill has been imprisoned in a Senate committee, whose attention is now focused on the SAVE act. Various crypto moguls have declared that if they can’t have “Clarity” (which they helped draft) then they’d be happier with no bill at all.

Every business mogul would probably be overjoyed if there were no laws or guardrails around their actions though, so let’s not specifically cast shade on the crypto billionaires for this.

I honestly can’t tell if a token which became a mutual fund which has no earnings, pays no dividends, and barely meets SEC reporting requirements is a scam, like the link claims. And there are more than a couple of companies which attract hundreds of millions in new investor dollars each month, not just XRP.

I’ll leave it to the participants on this board who are waist deep in crypto to add clarity (pun alert) in their replies.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Is XRP a Scam? Bitcoin Philosopher Says Ripple Is Running a $500 Million Per Quarter Wealth Transfer Scheme

Brad Garlinghouse - Wikipedia

Robert Breedlove - Intro to Crypto & Bitcoin 101

securities law

"Is XRP a scam?" The biggest scheme to defraud crypto investors in history?