Ripple Community Fires Back: Yakes' Bitcoin vs. XRP Slams Spark Heated Debate

The XRP community has reacted strongly to recent comments made by Eric Yakes, author of "The 7th Property: Bitcoin and the Monetary Revolution," in which he described Ripple as "completely retarded." In a lengthy post, Yakes criticized the fundamental nature of Ripple and its XRP token, suggesting that Ripple is the very problem that Bitcoin was created to solve.

Yakes argued that Ripple lacks a legitimate use case and that its technology and XRP tokenomics resemble centralized monetary issuance, which Bitcoin was designed to abolish. He dismissed Ripple's remittance and central bank digital currency (CBDC) goals as sketchy, stating that no one wants to use a volatile, centralized, and illiquid bridge currency like XRP when more suitable options for remittances, such as stablecoins or Bitcoin, already exist.

The author also claimed that RippleNet's reported volume numbers are significantly smaller compared to other crypto assets, and that Ripple's claim of large-scale adoption is a "deceptive game of smoke and mirrors." Yakes further suggested that XRP is not as decentralized as Ripple claims, citing the recent network halt as evidence that a primary node operator intervened without wider coordination.

Members of the XRP community have since criticized Yakes and presented counterarguments to his commentary. Former Ripple developer Matt Hamilton pointed out that Ripple and XRP are different entities, with the former being a company and the latter a cryptocurrency. He also clarified that Ripple's partnerships are aimed at incentivizing early adoption, which does not invalidate the protocol's underlying utility.

Another XRP enthusiast, going by the alias Vet on Xt, told Yakes that he would not stand for a single debate on the XRP Ledger versus Bitcoin, stating that Yakes' comments contained a large collection of misinformation or bad understanding of both Bitcoin and the XRPL.