I came across with a tweet that ‘Pierre Rochard’ had posted on Jan 24, 2019. It got my attention when I read Mr. Rochard claimed ‘‘Susan Athey’ (the board member of Ripple and Stanford economist) was bribed by Ripple to promote false information about Bitcoin. He shared this info with a screenshot that ‘Prof. Athey blocked him’ on Twitter social media.
Corrupt academia is in full crisis mode
Stanford economist was bribed by Ripple (XRP) to promote false information about Bitcoin
Watch out for scammers, fraudsters, charlatans, and conartists! pic.twitter.com/lwwiE8AIG9
— Pierre Rochard [⚡️] (@pierre_rochard) February 24, 2019
Student Seeks Clarity from Stanford Professor
It began by the student of Stanford University named ‘Conner Brown’ who shared the snap of email on Twitter that he claimed – had already shared with Professor. As per the statement by the student, Susan Athey who is the Economics of Technology Professor at the Standford Graduate School of Business – has shared ‘multiple misstatements’ about Bitcoin in comparison to XRP’.
— Conner Brown ⚡️ (@_ConnerBrown_) February 24, 2019
Although the presentation at the business school is a month old – but the student for not hearing anything from the professor via email – took twitter and shared the same email for a clear picture. The mail reads as follows; (Email in detail)
Susan Athey Disagree Student’s Claim
It’s worth to mention that Prof.Athey along with The Economics of Technology Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.– is also the board of Ripple Labs.
Following the tweet, Prof. Athey disagrees with the claim of students and took Twitter on Feb 24, 2019, and explains that ‘she wasn’t the professor in the class – rather a guest lecturer in the class with Ripple role disclosed. In her words;
Hey-I was a guest lecturer in this class with Ripple role disclosed, not the professor; Conner never contacted me or shared this letter with me; his description of my lecture is a caricature, and I disagree with his characterizations of the lecture.
— Susan Athey (@Susan_Athey) February 24, 2019
With the claim of Prof.Athey, the student again asked for slides that she had presented during the presentation and on demand, Prof.Athey shared the presentation (which goes below)
Here are my slides. Unlike what you might think from Conner's post, the lecture and slides are very high level, intuitive, as this was MBA class with no background in blockchain. Just trying to give the big picture as well as some of the challenges. https://t.co/fI5bQ9HxKn
— Susan Athey (@Susan_Athey) February 24, 2019
Half-Answered Still
The presentation slides didn’t put ‘full point’ to the conversation – Pierre Rochard and other crypto enthusiast began questioning on ‘audio version of the presentation and the disclosure’. As such, Mr. Rochard kept on asking ‘ Without the audio’…
Without the audio, just based on the substantive content of the slides, this presentation comes off as a Ripple (XRP) infomercial.
— Pierre Rochard [⚡️] (@pierre_rochard) February 24, 2019
Moreover, XRP enthusiast, favoring Ripple and its native token ‘got involved in conversation’ and says ‘XRP comparison to BTC is good when it comes to payment. In particular, user ‘Elliptic Herb’ by admiring XRP for Payment personally claims that ‘BTC is bad for Payment because it’s slow’.
I think the electricity argument is relevant only if you're directly comparing the same use case. XRP is for payments, BTC for SoV. It might be better to directly compare energy use of LN txns to XRP txns. Personally I think BTC is bad for payments because it's slow.
— Elliptic Herb (@EllipticHerb) February 24, 2019
As a response, Mr. Rochard claims ‘BTC continues to be far more liquid than XRP’.
Fair, my view is that both stores of value and payments require liquidity, and BTC continues to be far more liquid than XRP. Maybe XRP can sustainably grow its liquidity at a faster rate than BTC and eventually overtake it, but I’m skeptical as we don’t even have XRP futures yet.
So as for now, crypto enthusiasts (particularly Bitcoin maximalists) is waiting for further clarification from Prof.Athey. While on the other hand, XRP enthusiasts, taking an instance of XRP as a good way for payment quietly encouraging the positive sides of it.
To note – nothing is yet concluded and here I only present the open statement by Prof. Athey, claims of student and my interaction with Pierrce Rochard.
Stay tuned with Coingape as we’re in research of what Prof.Athey has to say about student’s claim – Any opinion meantime is welcome.
What do you think the claim is really ethical? Or do you think anything is missing?
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