Charles Hoskinson (찰스 호스킨슨), founder of Cardano (ADA), described XRP as having a structure similar to Tether and argued that Ripple’s business model does not provide tangible benefits to XRP holders.

According to blockchain media outlet The Crypto Basic on April 20, Hoskinson said in a recent interview that Ripple steadily sells XRP to fund operations, while holders have no rights to the company’s profits or assets.

Hoskinson grouped Ripple’s recent moves into a “Web2.5” trend combining blockchain and traditional business models. He mentioned Arc and Canton, which Circle is developing, and said a significant part of future market growth would come from this area. He also said Ripple is moving in the same direction through large-scale business expansion and a push for institutional clients.

Hoskinson said the issue is that Ripple’s business expansion does not directly translate into XRP’s value. He cited Ripple’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Hidden Road, development of privacy tools that could enable automated regulatory compliance for institutions, and its push for the RLUSD stablecoin. He argued these businesses could bring Ripple substantial profit, but the value does not transfer to the token.

"Value does not necessarily have to accrue to XRP, and that value goes to the Ripple company," Hoskinson said. Citing Tether, he added, "Tether’s value also does not go to holders, but goes into Paolo Ardoino’s pocket."

The interviewer, Wendy O, said XRP holders could also benefit if positive coverage related to Ripple and a bull market continue and lift XRP’s price. Hoskinson countered that Ripple holds a large amount of XRP and has a structure in which it draws attention and pushes up the price before selling XRP to buy other assets. He said those assets remain under Ripple’s control and XRP holders have no legal claim.

Hoskinson said XRP also offers no functions such as staking rewards or participation in company profits. "From that perspective, it is effectively similar to Tether," he said. "One company takes all the value, and holders get some means and a network, but it is not a structure where they take the actual price appreciation from that."

XRP supporters, however, did not agree with the claims. They countered that XRP has recorded significant price gains in recent years, and has also risen 20,000 percent over the past 10 years. It highlighted a gap in views between Hoskinson’s structural criticism and market price trends.

Hoskinson also said Ripple’s model is similar to Block.one, which ran EOS. He said Block.one raised $4 billion and built up $11 billion in assets on its balance sheet, including bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), but the EOS network itself did not achieve performance or benefits at the same level. He added that he did not pre-mine 80 percent of Cardano’s supply, nor did he design a structure that sells billions of dollars worth of tokens each year. He also said Ripple is not backing XRP, but selling its holdings.

He also raised regulatory issues. Hoskinson said Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s chief executive, is pushing rules that treat most new cryptocurrency projects as securities by default. He said such rules would work in favor of existing assets such as XRP, bitcoin, ether and Cardano, and could make it harder for new projects to compete. As a result, he added, a structure similar to traditional finance, in which a small number of projects dominate the market, could form.