Ripple CTO’s Mysterious Message Hints at Hard Choice Company May Have to Make in SEC Case

David Schwartz, chief technology officer of Ripple fintech behemoth, has added a picture with a message as his profile picture on his Twitter handle. The context of it and the word “Ripple” at the top shows that it describes the lawsuit of the SEC against Ripple.

Users from the crypto community are making guesses about what exactly Schwartz could mean and whether there are any hints on the possible outcome of the case.

“The cost of disrupting the status quo is higher” than was expected

The message on the profile picture says: “When a scrappy financial startup takes on a web of corruption and betrayal to bring instant payments to the masses, they learn that the cost of disrupting the status quo is higher than they could have imagined, forcing them to decide between their vision and their survival.”

The screenshots of this message have been retweeted and commented on by some crypto users on Twitter as they are trying to guess what exactly the CTO of Ripple and a co-creator of XRP Ledger could mean. However, they agree that this is likely to be about a legal war with the U.S. securities regulator, which has been going since late December 2020.

Various members of the XRP army began tweeting respect to Schwartz, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and other Ripple executives who are struggling along with the legal team to win the case and save the crypto industry, as many crypto enthusiasts believe, from tight control by the SEC. The SEC seems to be striving to announce digital assets as securities and to use securities legislation dating to the very analog early-20th century to regulate them.

He’s saying that they are going to have to compromise their vision for the company in order to survive as a company… The cost of doing business with the US government.

— Ashley PROSPER (@AshleyPROSPER1) February 22, 2023

Twitter account @AshleyPROSPER1 assumed that the point of the message shared by Schwartz is that Ripple may have to “compromise their vision for the company in order to survive as a company,” i.e., just get the SEC to acknowledge XRP as a nonsecurity, a status Bitcoin and Ethereum have from the regulators.

Fighting “for all crypto” is silly, per John Deaton

John Deaton, founder of CryptoLaw.US and a vocal supporter of Ripple against the U.S. regulator, has shared what he believes to be the main condition on which the fintech company would agree to settle with the SEC.

According to his recent Twitter thread, this is if the SEC signs a document that states that XRP is not a security, including its ongoing and future sales, as well as XRP sales on the secondary market by any individual or entity, such as cryptocurrency exchanges. In this case, he believes “10/10 lawyers advise settlement.”

Deaton does not believe that Ripple would refuse to settle because “it would fight for all of crypto.” He is certain that Ripple would have to settle because it acts as a fiduciary to shareholders.

The belief that Ripple wouldn’t settle b/c it would fight for all of crypto is silly. In the above scenario @bgarlinghouse @s_alderoty & Ripple Board must settle b/c they act as fiduciaries to shareholders. If they didn’t settle and lost they would be in litigation for a decade.

— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) February 23, 2023

If they turned down an opportunity to settle the lawsuit and would lose after that, Ripple “would be in litigation for a decade.”