5 Reasons Why Ripple's XRPL Does Not Fit Caitlin Long's Criticism

Caitlin Long, CEO of Custodia Bank, expressed skepticism about Ripple and the XRP Ledger right after Brad Garlinghouse's company applied for a license to establish the National Trust Bank. She stated that this is not a decentralized project, the token issuance is not transparent, and this platform is not suitable for modern finance. Her statements have angered the 'XRP Army' and Ripple executives, who believe she has missed important facts. Here are five reasons that critics have cited to prove that Long's assessment of XRPL is incorrect:

1. No Initial Coin Offering for XRP Long stated that the issuance of Ripple tokens by National Trust Bank takes place right from the beginning of the lifecycle, as an example of a "cash-out first" network, implying that this organization can never be trusted. "That was their first ICO," she said. However, the XRPL Vet validation unit has dismissed this and noted: "Ripple has never conducted an ICO. XRP had no value when the XRP Ledger launched, and the entire 100 billion [XRP] was allocated to the original account." Unlike Ethereum, which had an official ICO in 2014, XRP was not sold in an ICO but could be mined over time.
2. The Decentralization of XRPL is Often Misunderstood Banks have long been hesitant to adopt Ripple because they believe it is a centralized network. However, the XRPL community has committed to building a decentralized infrastructure that includes over 1,000 nodes and more than 100 validators, many of which are operated by third parties, as mentioned in our previous report. Vet argues that "no one is stopping you from joining the network, operating the infrastructure, or even forking the code base." The consensus mechanism allows validators to reach agreement on the state of the ledger but is not actually under the exclusive control of any one participant, even Ripple.
3. Ethereum Also Raises Capital Through Bitcoin Long further stated that Ethereum and Bitcoin are considered "reliable" because they did not raise much or did not raise any funds beforehand. However, Vet pointed out that Ethereum actually did raise capital because "Bitcoin was used to distribute ETH to early investors." Critics argue that Long has put the funding issue for Ethereum into context to underestimate the support of this company and exaggerate the support for Ripple.
4. Stablecoin Does Not Mean Failure The CEO of Custodia Bank described Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin as a strategic shift. She called this stablecoin "an acknowledgment that the base layer blockchain has not been accepted as expected." In contrast, the XRP community views this change as an addition. RLUSD is issued on the XRPL itself, meaning it leverages the decentralized trading and native payment platform of the XRPL. Ripple's Chief Technology Officer (CTO), David Schwartz, cleverly responded: I am always ready to chat whenever you want about events… our stablecoin RLUSD, the XRP Ledger, and the native token XRP.
5. The History of XRPL Shows Continuous Growth Although Long asserts that Ripple has not done much, despite having been active in this field longer than most competitors. However, Ripple enthusiasts appreciate the strong developer community, the increasing number of tokenized assets, and the continuous use by institutions. Additionally, Vet also emphasized: "The First Decentralized and Tokenized Platform Now Available — XRPL."