Canadian Bitcoin Developer Peter Todd and Controversial XRP Mention

Canadian Bitcoin developer Peter Todd, identified as a top Satoshi Nakamoto candidate by HBO last year, stirred conversation on social media by mentioning the controversial XRP token.

Some half-joked that the prominent Bitcoin advocate had been hacked. One commentator quipped, “Satoshi has moved on to other things I guess.”

After causing confusion in the Bitcoin community, Todd later clarified that he was dared to mention XRP during a recent Bitcoin mining conference.

The Bitcoin supporters have been at odds with the XRP Army for years. This rivalry intensified after Ripple began lobbying against a Bitcoin reserve, with CEO Garlinghouse publicly advocating for a multi-token alternative that could include XRP.

The Bitcoin community reacted strongly, expressing that XRP is a centralized corporate token. It is noteworthy that Ripple owns over $100 billion worth of XRP tokens, as per Garlinghouse.

Todd has remained mostly neutral in this ongoing dispute, although he has been critical of XRP in the past. In 2019, he argued that XRP did not need to “exist,” asserting that its only purpose was to financially benefit Ripple.

In 2020, Todd commented on data scientist Geoff Golberg’s discovery of many bots promoting XRP, describing it as “an interesting legal case.”