Decentralization has become something of a stick for cryptocurrency purists to prod one another with. Ever since the SEC declared that ethereum doesn’t constitute a security because it is now “sufficiently decentralized”, other altcoin projects have spotted a way out. Through achieving the holy grail of full decentralization, so the theory goes, it ought to be possible to escape censure from regulators. Ripple has come in for particular scrutiny on this count due to the fact that the majority of all ripple coins are held by the company. While it has been making efforts to disburse these through business partnerships and charitable initiatives, it could be decades before Ripple owns a minority stake of its coin.
The billions of XRP in the Ripple vaults, and the possibility that this could deem the cryptocurrency a security, is believed to be a deciding factor in Coinbase declining to list the token. Coupled with the ongoing class action lawsuit that ought to determine whether or not ripple is a security, and the company has every reason to push the decentralization narrative. “The Inherently Decentralized Nature of XRP Ledger” is a provocatively named piece from Ripple’s CTO that lays out the case for the separation of coin and company. In it he asserts: