WeBlog Founder Says XRP is “Obviously a Security”

According to Jason Calacanis, Ripple could have avoided the expenses of the lawsuit if they had just registered XRP as a security from the start.

Jason Calacanis, American entrepreneur, angel investor, and founder of the now-defunct platform WeBlog, is the latest to assert that XRP is actually a security. The serial investor recently expressed his confidence in this assertion today while commenting on the expenses Ripple has incurred in the US SEC lawsuit.

“XRP is obviously a security,” Calacanis said in a tweet. According to him, the best approach for Ripple should have been to go and register XRP with the SEC as a security. He believes this move would have “cost little” and possibly helped them evade the expenses of the lawsuit.

Calacanis’ comments came from a recent disclosure by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse while speaking to CNBC. Garlinghouse revealed that Ripple will have spent up to $200 million fighting the SEC in the long-standing litigation by the time the lawsuit ends.

Calacanis believes this could have been avoided. He said Ripple should have registered XRP “like everyone else in the industry does all day long.” This remark has elicited criticism, given that most crypto entities have not registered their native tokens as securities due to the lack of proper guidance from the SEC.

XRP is 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 $xrp pic.twitter.com/Yxga686tBZ

— @jason (@Jason) May 9, 2023

Industry Leaders Respond

Responding to Calacanis, Mike Belshe, the co-founder and CEO of digital asset trust company BitGo, claimed that the investor’s comments stemmed from an “ignorant view.” “Go try to register a digital asset as a security before you make ridiculous statements like this,” Belshe remarked.

Notably, Jason Calacanis is renowned for his angel investing capabilities, having invested in some of the most successful startups of the past decade, such as Uber, Tumblr, and Calm. Despite this, some industry leaders believe he is uninformed when it comes to securities laws.

“It bears repeating over and over — the asset itself, XRP, is highly unlikely to be a security. Your job is literally investing. You should try actually educating yourself on securities laws,” Jacob Franek, co-founder and former COO of Coin Metrics, said.

However, Calacanis is not the only individual with this view. As previously reported by The Crypto Basic, Lee Bratcher, the President of the Texas Blockchain Council, disclosed last December that he and numerous others believe that XRP is a security.