Ripple's Anti-Bitcoin Campaign To Promote CBDCs

By 2024, Ripple was offering its technology for central bank digital currencies, having launched a platform in May 2023 to help central banks, governments and financial institutions issue CBDCs and stablecoins. The article contrasts this with the $5 million that Ripple co-founder and chairman Chris Larsen gave to Greenpeace USA’s Change the Code campaign, launched in March 2022 to push for changes to bitcoin’s code on environmental grounds. Larsen maintained that these efforts were his own and not connected to Ripple.

It also follows the Texas Coalition Against Cryptomining, formed in April 2022 to campaign against Riot Platforms and joined by Greenpeace USA at protests in October 2023. Riot responded that its operations help stabilise the grid, and Lee Bratcher of the Texas Blockchain Council warned that CBDCs would lead to a surveillance state.