Ripple CTO slams Charles Hoskinson over SEC’s ETH ‘favoritism’

The Ripple community and Cardano’s founder have clashed over the definition of corruption in the context of the ETHgate scandal.

Ripple chief technology officer David Schwartz has countered the Cardano founder’s comments about possible motives behind the United States regulators’ determination that Ether (ETH) is not a security.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson addressed the much-debated ETHgate theory in an AMA session on Oct. 8, arguing that the government’s actions were not about corruption.

ETHgate is a conspiracy theory alleging that Ethereum received a free pass from U.S. regulators, particularly the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has been reiterating its stance that ETH isn’t a security for years.

Despite SEC director William Hinman defining Ether as not a security in 2018, U.S. regulators have been struggling to establish the status of other coins, including XRP (XRP), which has created significant impediments to their adoption.

According to Hoskinson, Hinman’s speech drafts on the regulatory status of Ethereum — which were released in June 2023 — do not prove corruption but favoritism.

“None of that activity presupposes corruption, just favoritism,” Hoskinson argued in the AMA, adding that “this is how the internet works, and it can’t be fixed now.”

The Cardano founder emphasized that there has been no evidence proving anything apart from favoritism by the SEC. “What evidence do you have of that? Where are the emails? Where are the meetings?” Hoskinson asked. He also argued that XRP serves different customers, doesn’t even have smart contracts and has an entirely different business model. He added:

“Doesn’t that dilute your entire goal of making Ethereum not a security to also do that? Are you so scared of XRP that’s going to happen? You really believe that? If you do, you’re a crazy person in my book.”

Hoskinson’s fresh ETHgate-related remarks have quickly triggered a response from the XRP community, particularly executives like XRP chief technology Schwartz. The XRP community specifically clashed with Hoskinson over the definition of corruption.

“I would argue that a government actor showing favoritism aligned with the personal interests of themselves and their friends is corruption,” Schwartz wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Oct. 12.

“So saying word ‘corruption’ in much polite way is ‘favoritism’,” one commenter stated on X.

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Some community members also alleged that Hoskinson’s questions about ETHgate evidence might be related to the fact that he allegedly has a lot to hide about his early days in Ethereum.

Apart from his role at Cardano, Hoskinson is also one of the eight Ethereum co-founders alongside Vitalik Buterin and even briefly held the position of Ethereum’s CEO between 2013 and 2014. Following a public fall-out between the co-founders, Hoskinson left Ethereum in 2014 to subsequently launch Cardano.

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