Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse in Twitter Spat With VC Over XRP

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has landed in an online spat with Jason Calacanis, an angel investor and podcaster. The two had a heated argument on Twitter after Calacanis declared that XRP was obviously a security.

“It would have cost little for the Ripple team to have registered it as a security and played by the rules — like everyone else in the industry does all day long,” said Calacanis in his tweet posted earlier yesterday. To the controversial tweet, Garlinghouse responded by asking him when he learned about securities laws.The Ripple CEO further added:

This is embarrassing for you (and hilariously wrong as there is no framework to register digital assets in the US), but we’re all used to you making controversial statements and trolling about things you know nothing about.

Calacanis, however, did not back down. “I learned securities law by investing in 350 startups, having a bunch go public, and by forming the largest angel syndicate in the world (with 11,000 accredited investors thesyndicate.com),” the podcaster replied. He also added that he read the SEC vs. Ripple court documents.

However, when asked if ETH was a security, Calacanis did not respond. Users in the comment section also vehemently disagreed with Calacanis’ statements. “At least have some respect for the 63 years old Judge. It is taking her three years and she can’t figure it out yet,” said one user.

Crypto lawyer and long-time Ripple advocate John Deaton also replied to Calacanis. “Claiming Ripple sold XRP as a security is one thing. Saying XRP is a security is another. XRP is a line of code inside software. How do you register? ‘to have registered it as a security and played by the rules like everyone else.’ Where did ETH, ADA, ALGO, XLM, etc. register?”