Jed McCaleb, the co-founder of gross payments settlement protocol, Ripple and remittance payments platform, Stellar (XLM), recently remarked that most cryptocurrency projects are “BS.”
McCaleb, who is also the founder of the now defunct Mt. Gox crypto exchange, believes that most traditional financial institutions will not use bitcoin (BTC), presumably due to its relatively slower transaction processing times. He told Yahoo Finance (on December 31st):
It doesn’t need to be the bitcoin blockchain, but if it’s not a public chain, then you’re missing the point.
Most Crypto Projects Are “B.S”
According to McCaleb, blockchain networks should always be permissionless because it doesn’t make sense to use distributed ledger technology (DLT) to implement a private database management system. In his interview with Yahoo Finance, McCaleb also said:
Ninety percent of these projects are B.S. I’m looking forward to that changing (in 2019).
The former executive at American fintech firm, Ripple Labs specifically took aim at Justin Sun’s Tron (TRX) project, stating: “Things like Tron, it’s just garbage. But people dump tons of money into it, these things that just do not technically work.” According to McCaleb, there is no cryptocurrency platform that offers a comprehensive solution to every problem.
Markets Have ‘Calmed Down’
He explained:
There are some things bitcoin is good at, some things Ethereum is good at, and some things Stellar is good at. And none of them can do all the things well. That’s just not how software works.
When questioned about whether this past year (2018) was a bad year for the crypto industry, McCaleb said it could be better described as a time period when everything “calmed down” – instead of a typical bear market during which growth and adoption stagnates or stops completely.
As CryptoGlobe reported in early November 2018, Stellar partnered with crypto wallet provider and blockchain explorer service Blockchain.com to launch a $125 million XLM giveaway for blockchain wallet account holders. In order to receive $25 in XLM, blockchain wallet users had to submit identity verification documents. This was a requirement for the giveaway because Stellar and Blockchain.com wanted to prevent users from creating duplicate accounts with the intent of claiming XLM rewards more than once.
XLM Listed On OKCoin
As covered, the XLM token surged 20% in September 2018 after the announcement that digital currency exchange OKCoin would be listing Stellar network’s native cryptocurrency. Another notable development for Stellar was the acquisition of Chain, Inc. (the developer of a cloud blockchain financial infrastructure) by the Lightyear Corporation (a Stellar Development Foundation-backed “commercial entity”) on September 10th.
As explained in an official blog post regarding the announcement, the Lightyear and Chain brands are now referred to as InterStellar. Commenting on the potential benefits of the strategic merger, InterStellar’s blog noted:
The merger brings Chain’s enterprise products and customer base to Stellar’s global public ledger, creating an end-to-end solution that will enable organizations to issue, exchange, and manage assets on a highly-scalable public network.
