It appears that we may not have heard the last of crypocurrencies being literally put on trial. I am quite sure the the lawyers representing Ripple are working round the clock to put up a solid defense to get an aquittal against the charges that have been levelled against Ripple by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. How that plays out we will eventually see when Ripple's day in court commences.
It may not be the last cryptocurrency currency to be targeted, on the contrary it may be the first of many. I stumbled across a tweet the other day that the USSEC was gunning for Bitcoin next. My accessment of the tweet was that it was likely intended to spread panic among the 'weak' hands hodling Bitcoin forcing them to sell while the whales gulp them up. But what do I know I am barely a year old in the crypto space. However nothing can be totally ruled out even if it appears to be a mere rumour as the powers that be are clearly not pleased with the way crypto currencies are leveling the financial playing field which has to an extent favoured the ordinary guy on the street.
Outside the hallowed chambers of the law courts we are seeing other unconventional trials of crypto currencies beginning to take place in 2021. Bitcoin Cash and SV rather unfortunately have been the first targets that have been hit by such trials. In the trial conducted by the OKCoin exchange where it appears that its community acted as the judge ,jury and executioner , the defendants (Bitcoin Cash and SV) were accused and convicted on a undisclosed count charge of misleading new entrants on the OKexchange into buying Bitcoin Cash and SV instead of Bitcoin. In a statement issued by the OKCoin exchange, it stated that the situation was further exerbated by the threats from the founder of Bitcoin SV. The sentencing for the crime is due for March 1, 2021 with the delisting of the defendants from the OKCoin exchange. Whether the defendants would be given the chance to file an appeal remains to be seen as the OKCoin exchange has urged other exchanges to follow the example it has made.
Another ongoing off court trial is one involving one of the most popular exchanges in the world. Binance is being charged by a twitter user for malicious intent against the Ethereum network. In the user's charge sheet on twitter, Binance is accused of being responsible for the ridiculously high network fees currently being charged on the Ethereum network in an attempt to force more users to come onboard its Binance Smart Chain which has cheaper fees. The user goes ahead to present circumstancial evidence which appears to 'implicate' Binance in the crime while another user supported the accusation citing the fact that for the period when the Binance exchange went down for maintenance, there was a significant reduction in ethereum gas fees.
However other twitter users rose up in support of Binance. They opined that Binance cannot be blamed for spiking the gas fees on the Ethereum network and even if it was remotely possible, then it indicated that there was a major issue with the Ethereum network if one exchange was actually capable of wielding such influence on the network fees. Countering the claim that Binance charged the highest fees for Ethereum based withdrawals , a twitter user explained that Binance was a business which had a choice of either charging higher fees to ensure transactions were executed faster or lower fees with longer transaction times which would likely result in angry and unsatisfied users.
He stated that if he was Binance, he would definitely go with the former as this would mean more satisfied customers at the expense of higher fees and less complaints of delayed transactions for its customer support team to deal with. This was argued against by another user who opined that Binance ought to give users the option of choosing the network fees they want to be charged irrespective of the effect on transaction times.
One thing remains clear, as the battle for dominance rages between the networks we are likely to see more trials off court obviously as charging any network to court would be like putting an entity without representation on trial. This would be akin to the ridiculous act of putting animals on trial as was done in Britain some centuries ago.
Shukran
Danke
Merci
Gracias
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for reading.
