Chris Larson, co-founder of Ripple, is currently involved in the lawsuit with the R3 banking syndicate. In the summer of 2016, he signed a contract with banks that allows him to purchase 5 billion XRP for less than a cent.
Recently, Ripple has gained a lot of value, becoming the second most-owned Bitcoin with the largest capitalization. Considering the current XRP price, the contract is worth about $ 10.3 billion. The outcome of this case can have far-reaching consequences for global banking.
Ripple claims that the R3 bank syndicate has signed the contract in bad faith and has planned to use XRP technology to develop a similar product. The last Ripple jump made Chris Larsen one of the richest people in the world, even in the cryptos world. Currently, XRP is listed on the stock exchange at USD 2.10. As reported by Fortune, the option contract represents almost 10% of approximately 55 billion XRP (total supply of 100 billion) controlled by Ripple.
Ripple thinks he is not obliged to honor the option contract because R3 has not fulfilled his promises. According to Ripple, none of the banks from the consortium used XRP. What's more, the CEO of R3 was aware that the giants of the financial industry, such as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase or Morgan Stanley leave the consortium, but he did not inform Ripple about this fact
R3 did not provide complete information on the current possibilities to act - in order to persuade Ripple to perform the contract. For example, although R3 told Ripple that it would have access to a large consortium of leading banks, R3 knew that several key banks that could be crucial to Ripple's success would soon leave the consortium.
In his own complaint, R3 claims that the June last year's decision to terminate the option was unjustified.
Large banks turn to blockchain technology, which can provide a cheaper and faster alternative to existing cash transfer systems.
In the meantime, Ripple has convinced more than 100 banks to use blockchain technology. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency community is skeptical - there are more and more voices that the XRP is losing the spirit of cryptocurrencies and is simply a banking tool, not a fully sovereign alternative currency.