A certain crypto news outlet has been hinting that Valor Foundation – a San Francisco based non-profit – is quietly building up funds in a bid to take over XRP through hostile means. While many people in the crypto world would love to see this happen to XRP and Brad Garlinghouse, it’s virtually impossible. There are too many variables and potential obstacles that could get in the way and cause the hostile takeover to fail miserably. The “anonymous tip” that the news outlet received is likely to be scaremongering from someone who bought a large number of XRP short positions.
Nothing More Than Rumor
All great stories have to start somewhere, and this epic tale of thievery, collusion, and saving the unbanked begins in a small office in San Francisco. Allegedly, Valor Foundation is quietly raising tens of millions of dollars from investors, which it will then use this money to short the hell out of XRP. In theory, this would push the price down significantly, giving XRP holders a reason to consider moving platforms. From there, Valor Foundation wants to hard fork XRP, offering all XRP holders one Valor token. To complete the move, Valor would then incentivize people to swap over to Valor using air drops based on the amount of XRP a holder burns, until there is no XRP left circulating and Valor has replaced XRP as the number two cryptocurrency by market cap.
An Impossible Plan
While in theory, the plan sounds mildly plausible – until you start doing a bit of research. After no more than five minutes of doing your own research, you will immediately notice that this rumor is nothing more than someone trying to scare the XRP community into selling off some tokens to drive down the price – this is why.
Ripple has partnered with a number of huge organizations and banks all around the globe. These businesses are all using XRP as their remittance currency for cross-border payments, getting all of these businesses to simultaneously drop XRP in favor of Valor would be an impossible task. Not to mention the stupidity of asking a bank to join a network that is in the process of a hostile takeover. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
A Total Waste of Money
With the money Valor is allegedly raising to put this plan into action, it would be far more productive to use it on hiring a handful of developers, creating their own fork of XRP and marketing it to the world – a bit like what Stellar did. This makes much more financial and business sense, adding more fuel to the fire that this rumor is nothing more than a rumor.
Garlinghouse Calls Fake News
Ripple’s enigmatic leader is no stranger when it comes to controversy, and Brad Garlinghouse has stepped in once more to call fake news on this rumor – and rightly so. He called out Dan Primack – Business editor at Axios – for selling snake oil and spreading anti-XRP propaganda. This time, Garlinghouse is right on the money with his claims as this report is complete and utter nonsense. Garlinghouse loves to trash talk the competition, and entering a bitching match with XRP’s leader is never a good idea unless you have a solid reason to do so.
.@danprimack wants to sell some snake oil… any buyers out there!? Media have a responsibility to help the industry understand what’s hype vs. substance, not to propagate blatant attempts at market manipulation. When will media coverage of this industry mature? https://t.co/QzZ3MxoyNR
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 15, 2019
While Ripple and XRP might have a shady past, these rumors are nothing but rumors. It’s impossible for a hostile takeover of XRP to ever happen – especially given the brand loyalty XRP holders have. Persuading enough XRP holders to drop their tokens and move over to another network would be almost impossible – better luck next time fake news makers!
