The title of this blog is in fact the title of a recent Coindesk piece as part of their recent "2018 in Review". I recommend everyone take the time to read it (https://www.coindesk.com/its-time-to-talk-about-crypto-twitter) as Shiv Madan does an excellent job of commenting on the need to move away from tribalism and towards level headed discussions that will hopefully bring all of us into a healthier ecosystem.
It seems that Coindesk didn't take the time to read the aforementioned submission.
I am not writing this blog in order to attack Coindesk or its staff members. I am writing this blog in order to clarify the responses I submitted to questions sent to me by David Floyd with regards to an article he published via Coindesk. I feel that my comment was used out of context and to portray the "XRP Army" has a band of lunatics and I do not feel comfortable with that. While initially presented as an honest attempt to gather facts and information the article was, in my opinion clearly written with malicious intent at worst or a pre-conceived "ending" at best.
Few items to mention before I copy and paste the questions and answers.
- It was suggested that the efforts of David Floyd and Coindesk should be ignored as questionable intent was likely. I gave David the benefit of the doubt. It is a pity to be wrong on this topic.
- I did not nor do I now support the vulgarities and attacks that were thrown at David when this whole discussion first started.
- I did not engage with David regarding his questions in order to get attention or acknowledgement. I did so in order to contribute towards what was hoped to be a reasonable article.
- No community is perfect and that includes the XRP Community. Aggressiveness, vulgarities, outrageous claims, a refusal to engage in civil debate, maximalism, etc are issues that plague all of Crypto Twitter. We all need to do better.
In conclusion I hope Coindesk takes the time to read the article authored by Shiv Madan and chooses to use 2019 to engage in contributing to a more civil ecosystem as opposed to hit pieces and tribalism.
When did you first hear about XRP? Then what happened? How did you become active in the XRP community?
I started actively researching crypto and blockchain during the early part of 2017 which led to initial investments approximately mid-2017. While Im grateful to have got in “pre-2017 bull run”, I was nonetheless somewhat late to the party as compared to those who have been involved with the industry for many years.
The longer I have been exposed to the industry the more fascinated I have become with the technology in general and specific to a variety of particular digital assets. We really do seem to be experiencing a global shift in terms of technological advancement and in the case of some specific industries, an absolute evolution in terms of how they operate. Anyone exposed to startup investments or tech in general would understandably be fascinated by the whole thing.
In terms of my activity within the XRP community, I wouldn’t really describe it as such. While I am exposed to tech and startups in my primary business function, it doesn’t necessarily provide me a platform to discuss blockchain and crypto. The industry as a whole is still quite embryonic so outside of Twitter its actually quite difficult to even find a consistent group of people to discuss crypto with. So, Twitter served as an outlet for me to engage with other crypto investors and immerse myself in industry related news. I did not start Tweet or engaging in order to monetise or to seek self exposure. I am simply using Twitter as a platform to discuss an industry that is interesting to me and given that my primary industry investment is in XRP, while I post about a variety of topics, a lot of my Tweets relate to that digital asset.
How do you explain XRP to regular people?
I don’t evangelise or promote XRP or crypto in general to people who are not involved in the industry unless asked for my opinion on it. That being said, in a nutshell if asked to do so in a brief way, I would describe XRP as a digital asset that allows for the transfer of value in an environmentally friendly way while doing so extremely fast and for extremely cheap.
What distinguishes the XRP community from other crypto communities?
It would be disingenuous for me to speak in depth about other communities as I am not involved with them just as it is disingenuous for those not involved in the XRP community to make generalisations. So while I cannot comment on what distinguishes the XRP community from others, I can comment on what I appreciate about it.
For the most part I have found the community to be well researched, level headed and open to a good discussion on topics that are relevant to understanding the various uses cases within the XRP ecosystem, the technology itself and just general macro level trends. I also really appreciate how engaged elements of the community are in terms of advocating for high level use of the technology, both XRP and the XRP Ledger, and making an impact. Two great examples of that would be WietseWind (Twitter handle) who has done immense amounts of work with the XRP Ledger to build real tools (IE: XRPTipBot, XRParrot and others) as well as individuals like WanderingWare (Twitter handle) who has been doing great work around using XRP to get trees planted in different communities.
Where do you think XRP will be in the long run (in terms of price, adoption, use cases, or whatever your preferred metric is)?
I don’t actively engage in price predictions as I believe the crypto ecosystem is too embryonic to reasonably gauge that. That said I think XRP and the XRP Ledger has excellent upside in terms of its adoption and use case potential. In fact I would argue we are very much already seeing real life progress in that respect whether its services like the aforementioned XRPTipBot which is fast approaching 100K XRP in tips, XRParrot which generated 50k EUR in deposits within 3 (!!!) days of its launch or the more commonly known use case implementations found within Ripple, Coil, Omni, Securitize and others. The asset has various technological benefits and merits that are being recognised by a variety of different companies and teams around the world. Until and if a better solution presents itself, there is no reason to think that the momentum will suddenly stop in that respect in my opinion.
What proportion of your assets are in XRP? What proportion of your time do you spend reading about or discussing XRP?
The majority of digital asset portfolio is in XRP but I do have a handful of other tokens as well. Tough to gauge time allocation but I am grateful to have Twitter as a platform to engage in discussions about XRP and the larger crypto space with other like minded individuals.
What's your experience with the XRP community been like? Who are the members you respect the most?
My experience with the XRP community has been the same as my experience with the wider crypto community and wider human population in general. There are those you like and those you don’t, there are those you agree with and those you dont, there are those you can debate with and those you can’t and ultimately you find the best mix of options available to you to make your journey an enjoyable one.
I am grateful for the fact that XRP community specifically has a healthy amount of well researched, level headed and reasonable individuals to engage with. XRPTrump, WietseWind, Hodor, Tenitoshi, Galgitron, HammerToe, Dave_Jonez_02, RobertLe88, haydentiff (All Twitter handles) and so many others have been monumental in terms of sharing information, answering questions and contributing to more knowledge within the community. Of course in addition to that everyone, not just the XRP community, should be grateful that David Schwartz is so active on Twitter given his role as one of the architects of the wider crypto and blockchain ecosystem.
Are you a fan of or investor in other cryptocurrencies?
Yes, I also hold positions in other digital assets. I do not believe that only one asset or blockchain will “win”.
Do you feel that some of the more aggressive behaviors some XRP fans engage in are justified?
I disagree with the nature of the question. I do not feel that aggressive behaviour is justified regardless of the digital asset someone is invested in and unfortunately I think aggressive tribalism is present throughout the crypto space. For every one negative Tweet found by someone in the XRP community I would suggest an equal negative Tweet can be found from another community either directed at an XRP investor or otherwise. What we need to be debating is why has crypto become so tribal in general as opposed to making it seem like only one community is engaged in it. As mentioned previously, the crypto space is not a unique species. We are all human and those of us in this space just so happen to be investing in digital assets. People get attacked, become defensive and so on all over the world and throughout crypto. We need to address that on a macro level and not alienate a single community as though the issue is unique to them.
