Welcome to BitBoy Crypto!
My name is Ben.
Rocking my XRP Army shirt here today.
You can't really see it.
But I want to take this time today to explain several things to you guys
about my viewpoints and my stand on XRP.
I recently did an interview with Rice TVx.
I don't know. It's maybe two months ago now.
And he asked me this question. He really pinned me down on it.
And I think it's very important that people understand my viewpoints on this.
Should I give up XRP?
Should I move on from the XRP Army?
Is it a centralized banker coin?
And, you know, I'm helping destroy America and the world by supporting XRP?
Now, look. I want to start this by saying that philosophical views in crypto,
I think they have some place, okay?
I do think when it comes to making a decision between one coin or another,
if the philosophy--
you know, this is why we ultimately got out of Solana and FTT in the beginning.
I realized the philosophy of those companies were terrible.
We had to get out.
And, luckily, we got out months ahead of time and were able to, you know, avoid some big losses.
We looked at VeChain.
I didn't like their, you know, the Chinese backing of VeChain.
They've since opened up some office around the world for the VeChain Foundation.
And they're kind of moving away from some of this.
So we might come back to the coin.
But that was not the reason why we got out of VeChain.
The reason why we got out of VeChain,
it was that,
but we were trying to decide on the 20th coin in our portfolio.
So we had two or three coins that we were trying to decide between.
And we use that as kind of the tiebreaker, I guess, if you will.
So I do think philosophy is important,
but I don't think it should guide every single decision
unless it's something you feel really strongly about.
Then, in that case, it could be a good factor.
Now, here's the two main arguments that people use against XRP.
And when they're trying to tell me why I should get out of it, okay?
So, No. 1, "It's a centralized banker coin," right?
And, No. 2, "They're partnered with the WEF."
And I think it's really important to understand because we're very anti-WEF, for sure.
But when it comes to the centralized banker coin, okay?
No. 1, it's not. It's not centralized.
There's a centralized company behind it.
If you look at the amount of nodes that they own,
they own six out of 155. The company does.
Yes, back in 2018, Brad Garlinghouse admitted that they were selling XRP.
Maybe it was 2019.
They were selling XRP to keep the company afloat and that probably affected the price at the downside.
But it was at a bear market.
So, in reality, you could make the argument that that was good for holders ultimately
or for new-- for onboarding new users.
Now, I'm not going to make that argument.
I'm saying you could make that argument, okay?
You know, I don't like it when coins go down.
I only like it when they go up.
But, you know. So,
how much XRP do they own?
Well, I don't have that exact number in front of me.
Maybe I should have done that research.
But they own a lot. The company owns a lot of XRP.
There's no question about it.
They have to for their On-Demand Liquidity and what they're planning to do with the coin.
So I don't think it's really fair to criticize them for holding a lot of their coin
when they're still in the process of onboarding more banks to use RippleNet and ODL,
which has to, in the future, be settled in XRP,
meaning they're going to get a lot of XRP back at certain points.
So that's kind of the centralized argument.
And remember, everything in crypto is a continuum.
Nothing is a 100% centralized or decentralized.
Vitalik used to agree with that until he attacked XRP the other day,
which made no sense.
Vitalik, boo. Don't like that.
And the other thing is, you know,
in this argument of the banker coin, as they say,
a lot of the Bitcoin maximalists, you know, they want the system to change today.
They want it changed yesterday.
Guys, that's not happening.
Bitcoin's not becoming the world reserve currency tomorrow.
It's going to be a long time before that occurs.
So, because of that,
you got to look and you got to say,
well, banks are going to be around for the foreseeable future.
They're not going away next month, okay?
We're looking 20 to 30 years of a fight here.
All the XRP is trying to do,
they're not trying to give banks more control.
They're trying to make them more efficient.
And I don't really understand the argument of what the problem is there.
Why do you care if banks are more efficient at sending money? Okay?
Because if they're more efficient at sending money,
then that makes the entire economy run faster.
It's an upgrade to the processes that a bank uses.
It is a network-- we talk about this a lot.
It's a network of value, not a network of information.
That's what SWIFT is.
It's inevitable that XRP replaces SWIFT.
There's no doubt about it.
And people really undersell the technology that XRP has,
not with the coin, but with the kind of point-of-sale system, if you will,
that will go onto banks that will allow them to use RippleNet and ODL.
Banks don't make a lot of changes.
I don't know if you guys have noticed that.
The way you go and sit in a teller, it's basically the same that it's always been.
They don't make changes.
So there you go.
I don't think it's a centralized banker coin.
No. 2, "It's partnered with the WEF!"
Well, you know, FTX was partnered with the WEF.
We see how that worked out for them.
WEF scrubbed any mention of FTX from anything they had ever done.
And I believe Brad, Brad may--
Brad Garlinghouse, who-- I love Brad Garlinghouse.
I will say nothing but good things about him.
He may have some role of the WEF, whatever the case may be.
Now, this is the question I would post to you,
the same question I post to Rice.
If the WEF came to me and said,
"Would you like a position here at the WEF?"
I'm going to say yes.
I'm going to say yeah.
I'm going to infiltrate it from the inside.
That's what I want to do.
And we know the beliefs that Brad Garlinghouse has about decentralization.
And just because someone is associated there, I don't think that inherently makes them evil.
I think that could be a mistake that we're making.
There may be some people that leak information.
Who do you think records these little clips that Klaus, you know, says
and distributes them everywhere?
There's some people in there that are probably good people.
And for me to take a swing at Brad Garlinghouse over this,
I don't think it's the right thing to do at this point.
And you might say, "Well, that's a conflict of interest for you."
"They're with the WEF." You know, "They're partnered."
Well, what is a partner, really?
I mean, does this mean they're driving the WEF?
Is this a paid partnership?
There's a lot of the big bankers that are in there
that obviously are probably going to be working with Ripple?
So, from that standpoint, you know, it might just be a strict business move.
Now, here's what I'll say.
Similar to the philosophy thing,
you're always going to find conflicts of interest in crypto.
Do you support the Blockchain Association pushing for smart crypto regulation in Washington DC?
Supported by Digital Currency Group.
Digital Currency Group associated with Genesis Trading,
associated with Barry Silbert and Grayscale.
Well, guess who gave them all their money.
The CCP.
Li Ka-Shing, Hong Kong tycoon.
Guess what, he's involved CCP, for sure.
Like, there's a--
go look at he bought 25% of Vancouver for the CCP back in, you know, the early 90s.
So--
and that's true.
100% of the money to start Digital Currency Group came from Li Ka-Shing.
$15 million
I believe it's 100% of the money.
But it was a gigantic investment at that time, okay?
So when you look at that, and you say,
"Okay. Well, what else does Digital Currency Group support?"
Brave Browser
Abra
I know the guy– I talked to the guy, the CEO of Abra. I think he's a good guy.
Right?
Ripple
Coinbase!
You ever used any of these companies?
They have their hands in so much stuff.
Decentraland
You could make a philosophical standpoint and say conflict of interest on any of those things.
My thing is, when I'm going to make--
if you notice what I said about VeChain when I brought up that philosophical difference,
I said,
"This is enough for me to stay out of it forever, but right now I'm not going to support it."
FTT and Solana we said we would never support again.
We said that before the insolvency even.
Because what Sam was doing was that evil and we were helping him by buying that coin.
So-- and everybody sees that now.
So my point is this.
You're going to find conflicts of interest in crypto everywhere you go, okay?
Look at everything Binance is invested in.
Look at everything Andreessen Horowitz is invested in.
BlackRock
USD--
do you use USDC?
BlackRock
Goldman Sachs
Circle
Coinbase
Then we get into the DCG again because Coinbase, right?
So when you're going to make one of these standpoints on a conflict of interest,
you better make sure you have all your facts straight.
You better make sure that you have all your facts straight.
And you better be sure that this is something that you're willing to stand on
and not go back on.
And so, for me, at this point, Ripple, that's not where I'm at.
Now, the No. 1 reason why I support Ripple and XRP, I would say,
is because of the community. I love the community.
We got involved in this community because of the SEC.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?
I didn't like XRP. I didn't like the Ripple community.
And then we galvanized together against Gary Gensler.
And, you know, I've helped push the ETHGate narrative forward.
Obviously, I didn't discover it, you know. Credit to Digital Asset Investor and--
ugh! God, I can't remember the name of the other guy who did it--
who were the really ones pushing that narrative,
but congrats to them for uncovering all that and pushing that forward.
But what I would say is, you know, galvanizing against the SEC has been great for me.
It's been something that's really helped me dig in to understand the corruption that exists in America
when it comes to our regulating bodies.
And I think it's something that, you know, can't really be understated.
So I love the community.
I love the XRP Army.
Shut up! I know I got an underinflated tire.
I love the XRP Army with everything I've got.
I think there was a lot of questions about me coming over the XRP Army at first
from the community thinking that,
"Oh, he's just doing this for clicks," or blah blah blah blah blah, you know.
"This is a trend."
No, no. I'm in the XRP Army.
And, of course, I call myself the Supreme Master and Commander.
That's tongue-in-cheek, guys.
That's a joke, obviously.
But I do have a big platform
and, you know, I certainly do love the community
and I want them all to be super successful.
I hate the SEC.
I want them all to fail.
I want Gary Gensler out.
You know, they've been very helpful in spreading that message as well.
So those are my thoughts on XRP.
That is why I have chosen to be in the XRP Army.
That's why I don't see problems with these two issues everybody brings up at this point, right?
As the WEF connection could get stronger, I could change that opinion.
And I'm free to do that. And you're free to do that.
If you're a person who's been very anti-XRP,
you are also free to change your opinion the same way that I did.
And that's what I love about this platform.
And that's what I love about life.
Is you get more information, and you learn as you go,
and you change, you make mistakes, and you fix them, and you repeat them,
and, you know, you become a better person over time, so.
Investing in XRP makes you a better person.
That's official life advice.
That's all I got.
Be blessed. BitBoy out.