- Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, announces that he’s been a Ripple investor from the beginning and hasn’t sold his shares for the past decade.
- Novogratz’s disclosure prompts a heated debate with XRP community member Mr. Huber, leading to reactions from XRP enthusiasts.
Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz recently stirred the cryptocurrency community by disclosing his enduring investment in Ripple Labs. Novogratz revealed that he invested in Ripple from its inception and has not divested his shares over the past decade. This revelation sparked a wave of reactions among XRP enthusiasts and incited a lively debate.
Novogratz’s declaration came in response to accusations made by an influential XRP community member, Mr. Huber (@Leerzeit). Huber suggested that William Hinman, ex-Director of SEC’s Corporation Finance, had provided “insider knowledge” about cryptocurrency regulations to several venture capitalists, including Novogratz and his son, Nate Hinman. In a video clip, Novogratz is seen predicting Hinman’s June 14, 2018, speech, where Hinman differentiated Bitcoin and Ethereum from securities.
After Bill Hinman became Director of CorpFin at the SEC, his son became Venture Associate for Plug and Play Fintech. Plug and Play Fintech held meetings for the Ethereum Foundation and in preparation for the Ethereum ICO. The Fintech division was formed at the same time. Nate… https://t.co/XDRu6zV6Sd
— Mr. Huber🔥🦅🔥 (@Leerzeit) June 21, 2023
Novogratz, in retaliation to these allegations, affirmed that he had never met Hinman personally nor corresponded with him. He claimed his only interactions concerning SEC matters were with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who frequented the SEC during that period.
Huber fired back at Novogratz, characterizing his defense as an excuse. In Huber’s perspective, Ripple’s business model is intrinsically linked to XRP; without the coin, Ripple would be a conventional software company. Huber argued that Ripple’s aggressive resistance to the SEC lawsuit signifies the importance of XRP to the company.
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Moreover, he found it illogical for Novogratz to invest in Ripple while considering XRP a scam. Huber added,
“Seems to me like ‘plausible deniability.’ I’m pretty sure that if you could have bought 0.5% of the XRP supply for $500k as you did with Ethereum, things would look very different.”
This fiery exchange between Huber and Novogratz piqued the interest of XRP enthusiasts. Yassin Mobark, Dizer Capital founder, questioned Novogratz’s seemingly contradictory stance of downplaying XRP while promoting ETH, despite his stake in Ripple.
Additionally, the controversy around Hinman’s speech has persisted within the XRP community since Ripple released a series of Hinman’s emails. These communications allude to internal deliberations at the SEC preceding his 2018 speech. Hinman’s emails reveal that he disregarded warnings from top SEC officials about his speech’s potential market confusion and its detachment from Howey factors.
Nonetheless, Hinman proceeded with the contentious speech, classifying ETH as a non-security.
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