Ripple, as usual, continues to selling XRP besides a strong reaction from the crypto community. Some people think that it is not decentralized at all but decentralized and the company is selling coins to make money instead of investing in increasing the ecosystem to trigger the price value upward.

A crypto consultant and former Bitcoin developer Peter Todd criticized the Ripple for its unfair token selling and compared it with ICO. He further said that the tokens are sold to make money.

This. XRP, like almost all ICO coins, doesn't need to exist and gives you no real rights to anything. It's purpose is to make Ripple money, by selling it to suckers. https://t.co/kif8JXfPfV — Peter Todd (@peterktodd) December 21, 2019

The technology officer (CTO) of the company comes in the field to respond to the critics who have raised questions about the company’s policies. He rejected the claim that it is like any ICO and further, stated the sales at the start were ‘’negligible’’. He said that the firm is being funded from the start and they started selling token assets when its market place is established.

Nobody buys XRP to give Ripple money to do things. We were vc/angel funded and were going to build regardless. We started selling XRP only after there was a market price and for negligible amounts compared to our other funding. — David Schwartz (@JoelKatz) December 29, 2019

Token sales data

However, the figures and the facts are opposite to the CTO’s claim. Mike Dudas, the founder of ‘The Block’, the crypto news website said that the total funding of the Ripple is $294 million while the total worth of XRP sales since 2016 is about $1.2 billion. This shows that the XRP sales are not negligible as stated by the company technology officer.

Total @Ripple equity funding: $294 million.

Total Ripple XRP sales: $1.2 billion. Yet XRP sales are "negligible amounts compared to our other funding" per CTO @JoelKatz. The bald-faced dishonesty and revisionist history of this company's leadership are utterly breathtaking. https://t.co/dXJlcAhtAQ pic.twitter.com/WkBSJv6zda — Mike Dudas (@mdudas) December 30, 2019

Another crypto critic asks the question from the company about how much they get revenue from the tokens sales and from funding in 2019. He then gives an answer, himself, that it is sure that 95% of revenue is from sales. But Schwartz replied that it is not his duty to reveal the facts.

My question for you @JoelKatz is how much of Ripple's revenue in 2019 was from sale of XRP vs. from selling software to banks? I'm guessing 95%+ from XRP sales? It will eventually start catching up to you — Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) December 30, 2019

The chief technology officer has defended the company’s policy a few days ago.

‘’So do Bitcoin miners. Of course, Bitcoin miners have to give most of it to semiconductor and power companies and can’t invest it into the Bitcoin ecosystem…

We designed a system that doesn’t take millions of dollars a day to agree and be secure and that provides better performance, scalability, and decentralization as well…

I’m not trying to say Bitcoin’s bad, I just think it’s not fair to compare XRP to some imaginary perfection rather than the actual assets most similar to it in market presence, size, and so on.

I think Bitcoin is great and I’m not particularly interested in people who want to criticize XRP on areas in which it is superior to Bitcoin.’’