TL;DR
- Discussions between Charles Hoskinson and Ripple’s leadership hint at a potential partnership.
- Hoskinson recently apologized for past remarks about XRP and expressed interest in building bridges with Ripple’s ecosystem.
Shaking Hands on the Way?
Earlier this month, Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, revealed he had a conversation with Ripple’s chief executive officer, Brad Garlinghouse. The former described the latter as “a great CEO,” calling him “extremely collaborative.”
Garlinghouse confirmed that there was indeed such a discussion, thanking Hoskinson for the kind words and saying “now is the time for the crypto community to come together, push for a level playing field and clear rules of the road.”
While the exact subject of the conversation remained unknown, the crypto community interpreted it as a sign of a future collaboration between Ripple and Cardano.
It is worth mentioning that Hoskinson recently indicated that he will spend some of his time helping the Trump administration create a comprehensive and possibly more favorable regulatory environment for the crypto industry.
Garlinghouse, on the other hand, was rumored to have met the now-elect president or someone from his upcoming cabinet to discuss potential regulatory reforms involving the sector. That said, the two executives could have focused on that front.
Most recently, Hoskinson held another conversation with someone from Ripple’s management team: the CTO David Schwartz. He claimed they discussed the privacy-focused sidechain under the Cardano ecosystem – Midnight – and Ripple’s native token – XRP. “Wonderful technical conversation,” Hoskinson said .
Shortly after, Schwartz stated that “it was pleasure” talking to Cardano’s founder, adding that “Midnight sounds extremely interesting.”
Somewhat expectedly, this fueled further speculation that a major partnership between the two entities might be on the horizon.
Hoskinson’s Excuse
Warming the feelings between Cardano and Ripple might be considered a surprise due to Hoskinson’s quarrel with the XRP army over the years. In 2022, he criticized the Ripple community for being “toxic and petty.” He also declared he would no longer discuss the firm or XRP-related topics. Last week, though, he apologized , envisioning a possible partnership between the two ecosystems:
“I would love to find ways to build bridges and work with them just like we are building bridges with the Bitcoin ecosystem. There are many areas of potential collaboration that I could see: from Midnight interoperability with Ripple up to perhaps participating in this stablecoin that the Ripple ecosystem has been creating.”
