XRP community divided over price: Why the so-called fork may NOT be a viable solution

XRP community on Twitter distinguishes itself from the rest by the title bestowed upon it- ‘XRP army’; however, a troop from this army has shifted allegiance. Leading this faction is a Twitter user ‘Crypto Bitlord’, according to whom, he/she (they) act as the delegated spokesperson for a disenchanted and disillusioned camp. Bitlord’s first operation was to launch a petition against Ripple, to stop them from dumping XRP.

Know thy “Lord”

Crypto ‘Bitlord’ represents him/her/them as a neatly-dressed sphynx cat (on Twitter) which also has a dragon tattoo on its neck and marking allegiance to XRP on its face. Bitlord has been a part of the crypto community for a long time and has a strong following of over 102k on Twitter and has been one of the important people of XRP community.

However, gone are the days of the purring cat as it flexed its claws at Ripple for allegedly “dumping XRP and restricting the price of the token”. With a handful of followers, Bitlord launched a petition to ask Ripple to stop “crashing” XRP’s price and to stop “dumping.” However, the petition was stalled at 3,299 signatures and failed to meet its required 5,000  signatures, at press time.

The chic cat took things a step ahead by threatening to fork XRP.

“I’m thinking about forking $XRP so we don’t have to deal with the founders dumping.”

When asked about the fork, Bitlord told AMBcrypto:

“Yes, it’s true.”

He/she added:

“Ripple One started out of frustration watching the company dump millions and millions on the market with no fu*** given. Cripple do “control XRP”. They want to sell this shit to mom and pop but don’t want any responsibility for the performance? That ticks every box of a an actual ponzi according to twitter dot com.”

XRP Fork?

Even though a part of the XRP community wants to fork, it certainly is NOT what the entire community wants. It would be against the ethos of XRP community to fork as they have been mocking Bitcoin for going down the ‘Fork’ road.

A fork could either result in the formation of a new ecosystem or the current developers might have to switch to this newer, developing, forked ecosystem. However, the latter may not be possible. Wietse Wind, XRPL developer and an active member of the XRP community took the time to explain the contentious road down the ‘fork’ lane.

Wind told AMBcrypto:

“…most (or all) developers I know are perfectly fine with how things are right now, because we’re in it for the long run.”

Wind explained two other scenarios of a ‘Fork’, which are plausible but may not realistically solve the problems that led to the decision of ‘XRP fork’ in the first place. According to the developer, if Bitlord’s team/group decided to fork only the tech, they will have to start with a fresh ledger. The problem of distribution of token would rise again and instead of fixing a problem, there will be another token and a new ledger.

“It won’t “fix their investment in XRP”.”

There you have it- even if the disgruntled faction decides to fork XRPL and the existing ledger, it won’t change anything.

“They fork both the XRPL and the existing ledger state. Let’s say they convince the existing devs. + ecosystem to switch, and the new token actually has value: everybody (Ripple as well) will still have their private keys, being able to send their tokens anyway. Same situation as before.”

The final way to carry out a fork is if they decided to fork with the ledger and update the source code to block the Ripple accounts holding large amounts of XRP. But, “that’s the worst kind of censorship” for a decentralized ledger and “even worse than what they blame Ripple for.”

However, the mysterious cat had another plan up its sleeve, which he/she shared with AMBcrypto:

“We aren’t exactly forking, more starting from scratch, removing the dodgy founders premine and shitty banking integrations. Think of me like a “Vegan Robin Hood”.”

According to Bitlord, the team has been receiving tremendous support from “high profile people”. “Vegan Robin Hood” has allegedly reached out to Kanye West and is hoping to get through to the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump. Bitlord refrained from divulging further information on the team’s steps but addressed a much-irked topic for XRP community – distribution of tokens. He/she said:

“I’m leaning towards the fairest distribution method ever ever seen before. We will make satoshi proud and possibly change crypto forever. I’m not sure what that it yet, but after this joint and 100 micrograms get back to me ?”

Cat’s parade vs. Ripple

The major part of the community values XRP based on its adoption which is mainly driven by Ripple. Ripple’s technology with XRP has not only opened gates to Financial Institutions but also brought in investments. If Bitlord’s arm of the community forks from XRP, the source of investment and adoption will be lost for the newly formed coin unless it receives the backing of the “high profile” investors mentioned by the troop’s delegated speaker. Additionally, though a fork of XRP may be possible, the newly forked coin may not solve the problem that led it down this road.