Holders of Ripple’s XRP token haven’t seen a lot of green lately, but it was likely a different story at their “community night” in New York City this week.
The event, held to coincide with Consensus 2018, featured none other than 46-year-old rapper “Snoop Dog,” who is known more for his chain-smoking than his block-chaining.
According to Bloomberg, “the smell of marijuana wafted through a half-filled event space in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District,” as the crowd “downed champagne and blood orange margaritas.”
Snoop Dogg arrived at around 9 pm and was well received by a room full of both XRP loyalists and skeptics, who sang “so what we get drunk, so what we smoke weed.”
Like the token’s price in 2017, the crowd was pumping.
But the decision to bring in a star like Snoop Dogg has raised some eyebrows among more serious cryptocurrency figures, who suspect XRP is a token running out of “puff.” (Yes, that’s another pun).
Laura Shin, one of the world’s most respected blockchain podcasters, recently questioned why it even exists.
“Ripple is highly centralised and XRP is more akin to a PayPal account than a trustless system like Bitcoin,” she tweeted.
“It’s hard to come up (with) any rational reason why XRP exists in the Ripple protocol, other than as a means for Ripple to make money. Lots of money.”
Sounds like she thinks investors should…
(Wait for it…)
Drop it like it’s hot.