The token vs equity misalignment problem is one of the largest systemic issues the crypto industry faces as an asset class When a founder/team sells both tokens and equity to investors, they are creating a dual set of competing stakeholders whose interests mechanically do not align And because equity investors have clear, legally enforceable rights and the company has a fiduciary duty and disclosure obligations to them, it’s usually the token holder that gets screwed Ripple is simply the poster child of how a crypto company and its equity investors can extract value at the expense of, and accrue value in isolation of, token holders Specifically, Ripple sells premined (zero cost basis) XRP coins to retail and then uses that money to fund corporate acquisitions and Ripple equity stock buybacks, to the sole benefit of its shareholders Ripple socializes their costs to token holders, and privatizes the gains/revenue for itself and equity investors XRP is simply the gas token of the XRPL L1 chain, which has very low adoption and is outdated by today's standards, and whose only real value capture is the fraction of an XRP burned per tx to prevent free spam on the chain XRP is not meaningfully used as a "bridge currency” or “liquidity” asset, and any theoretical future utility value on this dimension is getting completely eaten by stablecoins (even Ripple knows this, hence RLUSD’s existence) Thus, why I and others call XRP a “bank-themed menecoin” After being in the crypto industry for 8+ years, I know I shouldn’t be surprised about retail value extraction, but the business model at play here physically disgusts me I have no idea why anyone would be comfortable with such a toxic arrangements beyond being naïve to it (in addition to Dunning-Kruger, sunk cost fallacy, Stockholm syndrome, social media psyops, etc.) I genuinely don’t know how much more clear I can be on this topic, and while it’s fun to be called a retard and hater a thousand times, I really just feel bad about the whole situation(Zach Rynes | CLG)