Mike Novogratz Bitcoin bull and CEO of one of the biggest players in the crypto world Galaxy Digital might have said a room full of financial advisors that after losing 95% of its value from an all-time high, XRP would “underperform immensely again this year,” he wants to see Ripple succeed. After all, Galaxy Digital is a big investor in the company.

Novogratz took to Twitter to put out the fires that he ignited with his remarks during the TD Ameritrade’s National LINC 2020 conference in Orlando, Florida last week. Novogratz clarified his stance with a tweet,

1. GLXY is a big investor in Ripple Labs. I would like to see them do well. @bgarlinghouse has done a great job as ceo. I commented the XRP tokens underperformed $btc last year because Ripple owns a lot of them. I have been almost solely long $btc for the past 15 months.

— Michael Novogratz (@novogratz) February 6, 2020

He then went to say how this year XRP outperformed BTC which took him by “surprise,” because Bitcoin he believes is the “best place to bet on crypto” on a risk-adjusted basis.

While Bitcoin has found its place “as a weapon in macro portfolios as digital gold – a hard asset,” other crypto assets, he said are “venture bets.” Altcoins he said only have lasting value if their product is useful and altcoins like XRP and Ethereum are still in the “proving phase.”

While XRP has a “fervent community,” largely in Asia they have a large supply to absorb, about 57%, Novogratz said. Its price just like any other asset will rise if there are more buyers than sellers, where he said Ripple has “a lot of control.” He added,

“The company needs to distribute in a rational way at the same time building a real and scalable use case. I hope they do.”

Honesty from a Ripple investor?

It all started with the report Coindesk put on after it got hands on an unauthorized recording where Novogratz talked some smack about the company. Because it came from someone who is a big investor in both Ripple and XRP made the situation worse for the San Francisco-based company. Entrepreneur Alistair Milne said,

Surprised to see this level of honesty from a Ripple investor…
I agree with @novogratz https://t.co/xZFzCeZuIz

— Alistair Milne (@alistairmilne) February 5, 2020

Novogratz blames Ripple for XRP’s underperformance which owns 60% of the digital asset’s supply, basically all the things that Ripple has been trying to push back against. Novogratz while comparing Ripple’s situation with a company that continuously sells its shares said,

“When I’m buying a stock, if I know [someone’s] selling $10 billion worth of it at some price, it makes me less excited to buy the stock.”

Feeding rumors to drive market activity

Ripple didn’t take this very well as CEO Brad Garlinghouse took to twitter to share how Bitcoin’s 33% gains YTD are less than 44% of XRP. He continued in a tweet,

Also..this is the same guy that said bitcoin will go to 20K in 2019 ‾_(ツ)_/‾ #notNostradamus

He did predict Tom Hanks would win an Oscar for Mr. Rogers – maybe this is the prediction he’ll get right? Personally voting for Brad Pitt though!

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) February 5, 2020

Breanne Madigan, vice president of global institutional markets at Ripple also told the media outlet that Mike Novogratz doesn't understand how Ripple manages XRP and didn’t even take time to read the quarterly reports that the company publishes publicly. Madigan added,

“One of the biggest problems the entire crypto industry continues to face is misinformation. There are so many that are willingly, and knowingly, feeding rumors to drive market activity.”