Ripple CTO Compares XRP to Coconut, Here’s Why It Is Important Analogy

Ripple Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz has taken to Twitter to clarify an important thing that he has been often asked about recently — “whether something should be made to only work with XRP.”

Surprisingly perhaps, but his answer is “no,” and Schwartz also compared XRP to a coconut.

Products should not be focused on nothing but XRP, CTO says

Schwartz believes that instead of making dApps and other products working only with XRP, unless we are talking about an XRPL feature, developers should make the choice of assets to work with as wide as possible. Here’s how the Ripple CTO puts it: “No, it should work with anything it can be made to work with.”

The reason named by Schwartz for this stance is that products made to work only with XRP may lose people’s interest in the future. But he and Ripple want XRP to work for as many people as possible.

Many times, I get asked whether something should be made to only work with XRP. Unless it’s an XRPL feature (where XRP really is special because its the only native asset), I almost aways say “no, it should work with anything it can be made to work with”. 1/5

— David “JoelKatz” Schwartz (@JoelKatz) April 8, 2023

Here’s why wide range of integrated assets is important

Now, he says, there are a lot of platforms and products that do not integrate XRP and when/if they decide to switch into it, they will have a hard time. This is why, according to Schwartz, a product should be able to work with a variety of crypto assets, so that when necessary it can easily add the XRP token to its ecosystem.

“This draw more people to the technology and cause everyone to get better user experiences from that technology. If you can use it even when XRP makes no sense, you can easily use it when XRP does make sense.”

Coconut opener that helps cook other foods

At the end of the thread, the CTO compared XRP to a coconut, which are known to be hard to open. Therefore, if you want to make coconuts popular, he says, it would be a good idea to have a “broadly marketed tool” that not only opens coconuts but also “helps prepare lots of other foods.”

Ooh, I have an even better analogy. Say you want to make whole fresh coconuts popular. But they are hard for people to open. Would you rather there be a broadly marketed tool that only open coconuts or one that opens coconuts and also helps prepare lots of other foods?

— David “JoelKatz” Schwartz (@JoelKatz) April 8, 2023