Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has sparked speculation about a partnership between Cardano and Ripple after publicly praising Ripple CTO David Schwartz and crediting Ripple with fighting the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
On a recent livestream, Hoskinson described Schwartz as ‘super smart,’ ‘really passionate.’ The Cardano founder also described Schwartz as a ‘great guy’ and one with whom he had grown to enjoy collaborative meetings. Hoskinson hailed Ripple’s ability to overcome the difficulties of lawsuits and even regulatory scrutiny.
JUST IN: #Cardano $ADA Founder Charles Hoskinson says "David Schwartz is brilliant, it's a lot of fun being in meetings with him. #XRP was delisted, excluded, Ripple was sued, and even when they won, they still had to fight. $XRP, Cardano, and Bitcoin have a bright future." pic.twitter.com/rLNoLLOByW
— Angry Crypto Show (@angrycryptoshow) December 22, 2024
Dave Schwartz is a great guy, indeed. He’s a brilliant guy. Hoskinson said: ‘It’s a lot of fun to be in meetings with him, and I enjoy hanging out with him.’ “They’re still here. They’re still resilient. “They got a bright future because of it.”
Ripple’s Legal Fight With The SEC
Ripple is enmeshed in a high-profile legal fight with the SEC, which has accused it of selling XRP tokens in an unregistered securities offering since the beginning of 2020. Yet, in July, a federal judge ruled that XRP isn’t a security when sold on public exchanges. The case isn’t done yet, with appeals and penalties still at play.
Hoskinson praised Ripple’s success in pushing forward amid these legal and regulatory hurdles. It wasn’t Hoskinson’s comments about Ripple that strayed farthest from his pattern of dialogue over the past few months, though: he apologized to the XRP community on November 10th. The two blockchain ecosystems have found themselves able to restart conversations and even collaborate.
Charles apologizing to the XRP Community + wants to participate in #RLUSD
Good stuff Charles. pic.twitter.com/0k4qTZyW3D
— Vet (@Vet_X0) November 10, 2024
Hoskinson said he talked with Schwartz and Ripple CEO Brad [Garlinghouse] in meetings about the two companies possibly working together on synergies in Cardano and Ripple. According to sources, the discussion covered integrating Cardano’s privacy-focused sidechain, Midnight, and its smart contract kit, Marlowe, with Ripple’s ecosystem.
Speaking about Cardano’s native token, XRP, Hoskinson also hinted that ADA would make more sense on the Marlowe protocol than XRP. Ripple’s upcoming RLUSD stablecoin, which it hinted at being cross-chain with Cardano, is also slated to be integrated with the Cardano Blockchain.
After several meetings and Hoskinson’s statements, speculation about a Cardano, Ripple partnership or collaboration has begun. However, there were discussions, and in doing so, they revealed the potential that two distinct blockchain ecosystems would join forces and capture their knowledge of each other.
Hoskinson’s comments are part of a bigger trend of onboarding in the cryptocurrency world, where projects collaborate to innovate toward adoption and add new use cases in a competitive market.
With talks going nowhere, the cryptocurrency community continues to consider various possibilities. Ripple and Cardano have neither confirmed nor denied interest in working together.
