Why does Ripple’CTO react to Vitalik Buterin’s tweet?

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has once again expressed his resentment of Ripple’s native XRP crypto.

Ripple CTO: Should the government punish ETH?

The Ethereum network has been busy preparing for the merger. Following the success of The Merge on Goerli, Ethereum’s (ETH) third and final testnet, its arrival on the mainnet is now being considered for mid-September. The first stage, Bellatrix, is planned for September 6 and will then make way for the Paris update, which will complete the process.

But what is the source of Vitalik Buterin’s resentment towards XRP?

In his recent tweet, Buterin also recalled his previous tweet from December 2020, when Ripple called Bitcoin and Ethereum controlled by China. Buterin’s comments were made while discussing new regulations in Canada that place certain restrictions on digital assets.

Buterin joined in the criticism of XRP, stating that they lost their right to protection when they tried to “throw us under the bus as being controlled by China.” Buterin’s response caused a storm among XRP fans on Twitter.

Specifically, the Ethereum co-founder said XRP lost its right to protection when they said ETH was under Chinese control.

David Schwartz, Ripple’s CTO, then didn’t like Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s attack on XRP.

In the discussion that ensued around the Ontario crypto-currency exchange’s recent $30,000 limit for buying altcoins, excluding ether (ETH), litecoin (LTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH).

In fact, Canadian exchanges BitBuy and Newton have decided to implement a net purchase limit for altcoins. Ethereum, however, has been excluded. Important altcoins like Solana [SOL], Cardano [ADA] and XRP were on the list.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz said he wouldn’t mind capping XRP and that Buterin is playing a dirty trick by allowing the government to stifle anyone who disagrees with his views.

As a reminder, it was in December 2020 that the U.S. SEC filed suit against Ripple for selling XRP tokens as unregistered securities. So far, Ripple has been fighting the battle in court with the SEC.

The Ripple CTO said, “The government should punish projects that don’t agree with our pitch,” which seems pretty appropriate for ETH. He went on to compare miners in a PoW system to shareholders in a publicly traded company. Davis Schwartz noted:

I think it’s perfectly fair to compare miners in PoW systems to shareholders in companies. Just as eBay shareholders make money from the residual friction between buyers and sellers that eBay does not remove, ETH and BTC miners make money.

Schwartz ended his tweet with a question to Buterin, asking whether the security debate should be decided by the government or the market.

The security status of cryptocurrencies has been a long-standing debate due to the lack of regulatory guidance. Most regulators around the world consider bitcoin an asset, while the status of Ethereum is still a matter of debate due to prior mining and initial coin offerings (ICOs).