David Schwartz, the CTO of Ripple, has taken to Twitter to discuss which crypto projects are truly decentralized and which are not. He specifically criticized Uniswap, a popular decentralized exchange, for its licensing and governance issues.
Uniswap’s open source controversy
Schwartz responded to a tweet by @LefterisJP, the founder of @rotkiapp, who accused some crypto projects of “opensource washing” their work, pretending to be decentralized and open source.
He particularly mentioned Uniswap v4, released under a Business Source License (BSL). This license allows the software to become open source after a certain period passes after the initial release.
@LefterisJP cited this restriction as evidence that Uniswap v4 is not open source.
David Schwartz agreed with this view and added that Uniswap, the original version of the DEX, Uniswap, is also not decentralized.
He shared a link to his previous tweet, expressing doubts about Uniswap v3 being a decentralized project. He also took a jab at Uniswap v4.
He argued that “if some person or group has an enforceable legal right to tell others how they can and can’t use it, it’s not decentralized.”
Furthermore, he highlighted that Uniswap Labs, the company behind the protocol, control Uniswap.
Ripple’s stance on decentralization
Schwartz’s comments on Uniswap’s decentralization come as his employer, Ripple, is facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly selling $1.3 billion worth of XRP, a cryptocurrency the SEC considers a security.
Ripple has argued that XRP is not a security but a decentralized digital asset used for cross-border payments.
However, some crypto enthusiasts have questioned Ripple’s decentralization claims, pointing out that the company holds a large amount of XRP in escrow and has influence over the network’s validators.
Using various metrics, some XRP supporters have also tried to prove that XRP is more decentralized than Bitcoin or Ethereum.
In response to Schwartz’s tweet, @XRPcryptowolf admitted that Ripple is centralized. He says decentralization is “the biggest lie in crypto,” and no truly decentralized project exists.
He added that “at least Ripple is honest about being centralized.” Another user disagreed, claiming that only Bitcoin is decentralized.
