- Austin Hill flagged Ripple and Stellar as risks to Bitcoin in a 2014 email.
- Hill said Ripple and Stellar risked diluting capital in Bitcoin’s early ecosystem.
- Former Ripple CTO believes there is more to the conspiracy against crypto projects.
Latest information from the Jeffrey Epstein archives suggests the late Bitcoin proponent was involved in a background move to undermine competitors, particularly Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM). In a 2014 email, Canadian Entrepreneur Austin Hill considered Ripple and Stellar as threats to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Bitcoiners Felt Threatened by Ripple and Stellar
According to Hill, rising competition from Ripple and Stellar was, at the time, bad for the ecosystem Bitcoin was building. He noted that it would damage the Bitcoin ecosystem to have investors’ attention divided, citing their potential to “back two horses in the same race.” Hill was, at the time, concerned about capital allocation in the nascent crypto industry as other competitors arrived on the scene.
For context, Hill is the co-founder of Blockstream, a blockchain infrastructure company established in 2014 that focuses on advancing Bitcoin’s underlying technology. Blockstream played a significant role in Bitcoin’s early development, including raising tens of millions of dollars from industry-renowned venture capitalists in the crypto industry’s early days.
What More Can We Know About the Early Crypto Days
It is worth noting that the email focused directly on inviting Epstein and other team members, including Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, to discuss the identified issue. There was no confirmation of the group’s follow-up and what the discussion’s outcome may have led to. However, the released email has triggered reactions across the crypto community, as most crypto users are trying to clarify any links with Ripple’s multi-year regulatory challenges.
In his opinion, former Ripple CTO David Schwartz described the email as “the tip of a giant iceberg.” Schwartz suggested that there could have been many more events of similar ‘unethical’ developments during that period, which characterized the latter seasons of the crypto industry.
Multiple respondents to Schwartz’s post on X seem to align with the “conspiracy theory” narrative about the ongoing development in the cryptocurrency sector. Most of them are concerned about other similar cases possibly affecting the crypto industry’s growth and development.
Related: Ripple CTO Sparks XRP Debate Over $100 Target & Early Sales
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