On January 24, Twitter decided to disrupt the XRP community by banning the XRP Tip Bot account, which is a service developed by the XRPL developer who founded XRPL Labs, Wietse Wind.

This is what Weiste Wind tweeted on the ban:

Users: funds are safe, even if Twitter somehow decides to block the TipBot forever, I have safe methods in mind to allow you all to recover your funds 👍👍 Let's hope that isn't necessary.

— Wietse Wind { 𝚡𝚛𝚙𝚕𝙳𝚎𝚟: 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚎 } (@WietseWind) January 23, 2020

Tip Bot Account Suspended on Grounds of Impersonation

Twitter replied by saying the Tip Bot account was banned on grounds of impersonation, without any chance of being restored. However, the reasons behind the ban as Wind said in an AMBCrypto interview that:

“There are two theories suggested by community members: #1: competition for future plans, or #2: mass reports by Twitter users who dislike XRP (tribalism, I hate it). I think it’s #2, as several other TipBots are still active.”

Tip Bot also runs on Discord and Reddit, none of which have banned it. The XRP community suggested many changes Wind could do to restore the account on Twitter, with one person telling him to create a social media platform, especially for Tip Bot.

A Solution to the Problem Has Been Found

This is the announcement Wind made about the solution he found to the ban issue:

🎉✅ While the XRPTipBot account is still blocked by Twitter, I made some changes and the XRP TipBot is back using the hashtag #xrptip. @TwitterSupport +1 #xrptip: please manually review case #0139904718

— Wietse Wind { 𝚡𝚛𝚙𝚕𝙳𝚎𝚟: 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚎 } (@WietseWind) January 24, 2020

Although there was a small hiccup in his fix. Whenever another user retweeted a tweet that had a tip in it, the retweeter would end up sending a tip as well. He changed this to a more direct approach.

Since the speculated “tribalism” idea is still in the cards, Wind said he’s now prepared in case Twitter decides to strike back. This is his exact words regarding the plan:

“If one day Twitter decides I can no longer access their platform, I will build a mechanism that asks users to verify by publicly tweeting out a unique verification code. I’ll be able to identify users that way, and release their funds to a destination they can provide.”

In the meantime, rumors are saying Twitter is preparing a tipping service that uses Bitcoin (BTC). However, these rumors haven’t been confirmed yet.