David Schwartz: People Have Largely Lost the Ability to Separate Facts from Reality about XRP

The CTO at Ripple, David Schwartz, has recently shared his thoughts on the conspiracy theories popping up in the crypto space about XRP, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

This came about after an XRP community member identified on Twitter as xrpdarren, asked to know David Schwartz’s opinion regarding the conspiracy theory centered on the Ripple’s digital token XRP.

xrpdarren shared this, “David Schwartz, what are your thoughts regarding the conspiracy theory online subculture that centers itself around XRP. It must be odd, to help create a digital asset and watch a large group of people have blind faith that is the solution to most of the world’s problems.”

David Schwartz Shares His Thoughts

In response to xrpdarren’s concern, Ripple CTO David Schwartz acknowledged the existence of conspiracy theories around the XRP with the crypto community, stating it might be a sign of our times.

He furthered by suggesting that those spreading conspiracy theories have possibly lost the ability or desire to separate facts from reality.

“I think it’s also, to some extent, a sign of our times. Conspiracy theories of all kinds are popping up everywhere and it seems people have largely lost the ability to separate facts from reality, or maybe even (at least in some cases) the desire to,” David Schwartz responded.

I think it's also, to some extent, a sign of our times. Conspiracy theories of all kinds are popping up everywhere and it seems people have largely lost the ability to separate facts from reality, or maybe even (at least in some cases) the desire to.

— Ｄａｖｉｄ　"ＪｏｅｌＫａｔｚ"　Ｓｃｈｗａｒｔｚ (@JoelKatz) June 6, 2020

In the same thread of tweets, Schwartz stressed the necessity of making in-depth research before coming to a conclusion, which he said seems impossible for people.

He wrote:

“I do think it’s a real problem that we tell everyone to DYOR when it’s nearly impossible to do that. The investment required to have an informed opinion about almost anything in this space is massive.”

“Another thing to watch out for: If something is implausible, it’s almost certainly not true. But it’s very easy to make up things that are totally false but entirely plausible.

“In fact, unless you’re a fool, that’s pretty much the only way to make things up that might be believed. So don’t think that something you hear, if plausible, is likely to be true. People who make things up are often careful to make them plausible.”

Matt Hamilton Shares His Opinion about Misinformation around XRP

Matt Hamilton, a software developer, also shared his opinion regarding people misunderstanding XRP and also helping to spread the misinformation, citing one of the posts shared by Bitmex Research.

He wrote:

“This is a major problem. The number of people I encounter that hold up blog posts and news articles of complete twaddle to support their mistaken views of XRP. The Bitmex Research post is a prime example. You and I both spent time debunking that 2 years ago, and it is still there.”