TL;DR
- Charles Hoskinson argued XRP creates no organic buy demand for holders and said Ripple sells the token to fund company growth instead of returning value.
- He contrasted that model with Hyperliquid, where ecosystem activity generates fees used for token buybacks, linking usage more directly to holder benefit.
- Hoskinson also warned that default security treatment for new projects could entrench older crypto incumbents and choke off meaningful competition in crypto markets.
Charles Hoskinson has launched one of his sharpest attacks yet on Ripple’s XRP model, arguing that the token’s structure asks holders to believe in value that the network itself does not generate. His core complaint is brutally simple: XRP, in his view, creates no organic buy demand for the people who own it. Framed that way, the issue is not short-term price action or branding. It is whether a token can claim long-term alignment with its community when the business built around it keeps capturing value elsewhere.
Hoskinson’s argument turns on a distinction he sees as fundamental. He contrasts tokens that feed value back into their own ecosystems with tokens that mainly finance the companies behind them. His preferred comparison is Hyperliquid, where user activity generates fees that are used to buy back the token, creating what he describes as a circular economy. XRP, by contrast, sits beside a private company with its own investors and shareholders. In his framing, Ripple generates revenue, sells XRP, converts proceeds into cash, and uses that capital to acquire assets that remain on the company’s balance sheet.
The argument widens from tokenomics to market structure
That critique then widens from tokenomics to regulation. Hoskinson argues that the real danger is not just misaligned incentives, but a market structure that protects incumbents while locking newer projects out. In his view, Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Cardano already sit inside a safer regulatory position as commodities, while new projects risk being treated as securities by default. That, he says, makes it harder for younger networks to reach exchanges, build liquidity, broaden ownership, and eventually mature into commodity-like blockchain assets with a fair chance to compete.
What makes the criticism sting is that it is not merely about Ripple’s treasury behavior. Hoskinson is describing a future in which established crypto names keep their status while the drawbridge rises behind them. Under that scenario, older networks benefit from regulatory shelter and market access, while the next wave faces rules strict enough to prevent meaningful growth before legitimacy can ever be earned. His accusation is that this is starting to resemble Wall Street logic inside an industry that once promised open competition. If that reading gains traction, the debate around XRP stops being a token dispute and becomes a fight over crypto’s power structure in the years ahead.
