Messari co-founder Ryan Selkis is a well-known Ripple critic. Over the past few months, Selkis’ scorn for the San Francisco-based company and its cross-border payments token XRP seems to have taken a darker turn. The pundit slammed Ripple’s attempts to create ties with the forthcoming Donald Trump government. Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty dined with President-elect Trump earlier this month. Selkis Takes A Swipe At Ripple And XRP Messari’s Ryan Selkis has once again taken aim at Ripple and XRP. In a recent post on the X platform, Selkis described Ripple as a threat to the Trump administration’s cryptocurrency agenda, cautioning that XRP’s recent market strides are generally detrimental. The industry expert noted that XRP has surpassed Salesforce in market cap and is nearing the market capitalization of Bank of America. Moreover, XRP is now bigger than ride-hailing giant Uber, Spotify, PayPal, and MicroStrategy combined. In addition, the third-largest crypto is basically 5X the size of America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase. “Ripple’s crash and scandals will take down the entire crypto agenda in DC,” Selkis wrote. XRP is now bigger than Salesforce and approaching BofA in market cap. + Top 30 US company. + Twice the value of Uber. + Bigger than Shopify, PayPal, and Microstrategy combined. + 5x the size of Coinbase. Ripple’s crash and scandals will take down the entire crypto agenda in DC. — Ryan Selkis (d/acc) (@twobitidiot) January 16, 2025 It’s worth mentioning that XRP currently commands a $178 billion market cap following its recent rally, while Salesforce is valued at $310 billion. But for Selkis and other Ripple critics, this does little to detract from the fact that Ripple’s parabolic growth is a potential threat to crypto. Selkis, meanwhile, claims that Ripple will unleash doom for crypto. In a follow-up post intended to explain his aversion to Ripple, he posited that the company’s executives were not good people, possibly referencing co-founder Chris Larsen and CEO Bradley Garlinghouse. “The reason I’m a dick about Ripple isn’t because I care about XRP or its memecoin rally. I’m happy for all of the retail holders who have made bank. My issue with them is that they aren’t content with just being billionaires, they lust for power,” Selkis asserted. Ripple And The Trump Administration As ZyCrypto reported previously, Ripple donated $5 million worth of XRP to Trump’s presidential inaugural fund. Reports say that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under Trump could review its crypto-related cases and pause any that don’t have fraud allegations. Industry lawyers also bet that the SEC will soon abandon its crypto cases . Ripple’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty said on Jan. 15 that the regulator’s long-running enforcement case against the firm was “likely to be abandoned” by the incoming Trump administration after the agency filed an appeal challenging a July 2023 ruling that partially dismissed claims against the company. More interestingly, Trump is reportedly open to creating a wider national strategic reserve — prioritizing U.S.-founded cryptocurrencies such as XRP. The news was enough to send XRP to a price not seen since 2018. The crypto peaked at $3.38 — just two cents from its all-time high price mark.
