Ripple CTO called out by Twitter for market manipulation of FLR token

On Jan 12, 2023

Ripple CTO David Schwartz has been criticized for alleged market manipulation of Flare (FLR) tokens with his recent comments on the FLR token airdrop.

The current Flare holding rules for subsequent airdrops leave absolutely no incentive not to sell your Flare now. You lose *nothing* if you sell now. 1/3
— David “JoelKatz” Schwartz (@JoelKatz) January 12, 2023

The Ripple CTO recently spoke in favor of selling FLR from the Flare project citing the token has no value.

Schwartz highlighted Flare’s recent airdrop and targeted the Flare team claiming they had not kept to their commitment and gave 15% of what they promised. Furthermore, the CTO claimed that Flare leveraged the XRP community to grow but undermined its promises.

A few hours after his comments, FLR tanked by 10% to $0.04367.

Despite some Twitter users supporting his views, some accused him of manipulating the community to sell FLR and, one hour later, claiming to have bought a “bunch.”

Did you get a little buy-in liquidity by posting this thread to your 500K XRP community followers?
“You lose *nothing* if you sell now.”
1 hour later
“I just bought a bunch.”
🤔
— Flare Oracle (FTSO) ☀️ (@flareoracle_io) January 12, 2023

After all that, why did you then buy flare? that’s some crazy double speak you have going on there, telling everyone why it’s good to sell, only then to finish by saying you bought flare. Genuine question
— Alt crusader (@crusader_alt) January 12, 2023

Worth noting that Flare Network intends to introduce smart contract capabilities to multiple blockchains, starting with XRP and Litecoin (LTC).

On January 9, 4.279 billion FLR tokens were distributed to XRP holders based on a snapshot of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) taken in late 2020. With the airdropped token starting to trade on exchanges like Binance, OKX, and Kraken, prices rocketed above $0.076.

However, FLR dropped by 87% shortly after token distribution started on January 9. Despite this, the token has rebounded somewhat after the comments of the Ripple CEO, trading at $0.04451 as of press time.