Ripple’s chief technology officer (CTO), David Schwartz, has just weighed in on the controversial XRP buyback proposal, specifying it looks like a “scam”.
On February 6, Schwartz took to Twitter to reveal that although he has not yet taken a closer look at the scheme but the XRP buyback program, a proposal was floated by Jimmy Vallee of Valhill Capital in 2021, resembles a scam. This comes after pro-Ripple lawyer, John E Deaton, separated himself from the XRP buyback proposal and denied accepting any money for his legal efforts in the Ripple vs SEC lawsuit. In addition, Schwartz emphasized unspecified incidents in 2012 and 2022, cautioning users to be wary of anyone offering high returns for low risk. He tweeted,
“I haven’t looked at it very closely. But what I have seen looks an awful lot like a scam to me. If we’ve learned anything from 2012 and 2022 it’s that anyone promising high returns with low risk is almost certainly going to rob you.”
I haven't looked at it very closely. But what I have seen looks an awful lot like a scam to me. If we've learned anything from 2012 and 2022 it's that anyone promising high returns with low risk is almost certainly going to rob you.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) February 5, 2023
What is the XRP Buyback Program?
XRP buyback proposal was first started by Jimmy Vallee, the managing director and co-founder of Valhil Capital, who had backed XRP to become the reserve currency of the world. He stated the global financial system would require a scalable digital asset in the future to address the problem of high national debts. When Ripple released its Q2 2022 financial report, it revealed that it has been purchasing XRP back from the secondary market. The XRP repurchase program was intended to be sold to On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) firms.
Recently, Vallee indicated that XRP buyback might be possible if the verdict in the SEC lawsuit comes in Ripple’s favor. However, several crypto market critics snapped on the controversial program with Matt Hamilton, the former director of developer relations at Ripple accusing Vallee of committing bribery under the pretext of the XRP buyback scheme.
Whales Move Massive Amounts of XRP
Furthermore, XRP influencers like Crypto Eri has also strongly condemned the buyback deal. The influencer noted a “confidential committee” were working on the proposal, and if they managed to broker the deal, they would receive a share of a staggering one hundred million dollars.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 205,500,000 #XRP (81,762,093 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallethttps://t.co/mbPTt6oB4a
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) February 5, 2023
On February 6, crypto whale tracker “Whale Alert” displayed four massive XRP transactions in the last 24-hours, moving a total of nearly $126 million. The single largest transfer moved 205,500,000 XRP worth $81.7 million from one unknown wallet to another unknown wallet. The remaining whale transfers sent XRP both to and from a number of crypto exchanges, suggesting large investors may have bought and sold the digital asset in big numbers. According to CoinMarketCap, XRP is down 2.64% in the last 24 hours to trade at $0.399. The token has declined more than 2.70% over the past seven days.
