Student anger as professor ‘slams Bitcoin’ but praises Ripple – where she’s a board member

A Stanford University professor who is on Ripple’s board of directors has been accused of praising the cryptocurrency while slamming rival Bitcoin in a presentation.

Student Conner Brown recently attended a presentation about crypto by Professor Susan Athey and claims she misinformed students about Bitcoin while also promoting Ripple.

Professor Athey joined Ripple Lab’s board of directors in 2014.

Brown claims he took his concerns to his professors, but they would not talk to him in person.

He then sent an email to Stanford professors and claims that too has been ignored.

Coin Rivet has reached out to Professor Athey for a comment.

Misinformation

Brown has now taken to Twitter to air his misgivings.

He claims Professor Athey said Bitcoin is “controlled by a small group of miners in China” and is not secured cryptographically but economically.

He said: “She argued that mining means your funds are only secured by profits of miners.

“She went on to claim that Ripple has solved this problem by removing miners from the picture.”

Brown inquired into why Ripple sells its token to retail investors if the token is supposed to be used for bank liquidity. Professor Athey reportedly responded by stating Ripple “routinely disburse the token” while denying Brown’s comment.

Community response

Many in the crypto community praised Brown’s actions.

Notably, Riccardo Spagni – lead developer at Monero – thanked Brown.

Another Twitter user, Calvin Chu, wrote: “I heard her speak last year at uchicago and also mentioned some Ripple comments at the time which I though were questionable.”

Meanwhile, Alex Magnus suggested that Professor Athey holds an equity position in Ripple.

While an overwhelming majority are in Brown’s corner, some were quick to pick up that his own responses might not necessarily be correct. Several people got involved and posted their own thoughts.

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