The myth of Ripple controlling the XRP Ledger has haunted XRP prices for years, but an upcoming initial coin offering (ICO) might shift those perceptions.
What am I talking about?
Well, a small Brazilian company called Allvor is launching its own token on the XRP Ledger. Allvor plans on airdropping five percent of its tokens to XRP holders, with the condition that they have owned XRP before March 27, 2018.
This ICO is similar to the hundreds of tokens that launched on Ethereum’s platform, but it might strike people as odd.
One reason is that XRP hasn’t typically hosted ICOs before. Another is that many investors think Ripple controls XRP with an iron fist. This is not true. Ripple created the XRP Ledger, but it doesn’t control it.
The confusion stems from Ripple’s treasure trove of XRP tokens. It owns more than 55 billion, which constitutes a majority of the money supply.
Investors worried that Ripple could flood the market whenever it chose, so the company put its XRP holdings in an untouchable escrow account to ease their concerns.
Problem solved, right? Not so much. Despite Ripple’s best efforts, some investors still think the company has final say over the XRP Ledger.
I think the Allvor ICO might finally change their minds.
You see, Ripple doesn’t seem that enthusiastic about the ICO. Here’s a statement they put out in response to Allvor’s whitepaper:
“XRP Ledger is open-source and a decentralized platform, so people can build whatever they want, but Ripple isn’t interested in promoting or supporting ICOs on the ledger.”