Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has reignited a long-standing debate over the fundamental value proposition of XRP, questioning whether its holders truly benefit from Ripple's corporate success. This criticism comes even as plans to integrate XRP into Cardano's decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem continue to move forward.
During a recent discussion, Hoskinson was asked if XRP holders profit when positive headlines about Ripple drive the token's price up during a bull market. His response was pointed. "You got to understand that they gave themselves somewhere between 70 to 80% of the supply," Hoskinson said, referring to Ripple's initial allocation of the 100 billion XRP supply. "The game is make the headlines, make the price go up, sell the XRP to other people, and then use the cash to buy assets."
Hoskinson argues that XRP holders have no legal ownership of the assets Ripple builds with the capital raised from selling XRP. This includes its prime brokerage, custody business, treasury management platform, and acquisitions. These belong to Ripple as a private company with its own investors and shareholders. "XRP holders have no legal ownership of those assets," he stated. "They go to a centralized company. The XRP token doesn't really have much to say or do with that. There are no staking rewards or other things connected to it." He compared the model to Tether, where one company captures the value while holders get an instrument without direct price appreciation from the underlying business.
He contrasted this with what he described as a properly structured tokenomic model, using Cardano's privacy-focused blockchain Midnight (NIGHT) and Hyperliquid as examples. In such systems, network activity creates direct buy demand for the native token, ensuring value flows back to holders. "There is nothing in the Ripple network that creates buy demand for the XRP token. Nothing," Hoskinson asserted.
Despite this criticism, Hoskinson confirmed that efforts to integrate XRP into Cardano DeFi are "still planned." This confirmation follows renewed community scrutiny over Cardano's cross-chain ambitions and comes as rival network Solana accelerates its own integration. Solana has already introduced wrapped XRP (wXRP) into its ecosystem via a custody-and-mint model provided by Hex Trust and LayerZero, allowing XRP holders to access Solana's lending and trading pools.
The debate has also touched on decentralization. Hoskinson argued that a truly decentralized network should withstand criticism of its leadership. "If XRP is so centralized that criticism of a single person's conduct and lobbying means the ecosystem is shut off, then they aren't decentralized," he posted on X.
