On Friday, I used this column to discuss the history of Ripple, the San Francisco company that has built a business around XRP, the cryptocurrency with which it is closely tied. My account discussed Ripple's struggles over the years to find a long-term business case but concluded on a positive note, citing the company's claim that the past two years have been its best ever.
On Saturday, I awoke to find my Twitter notifications had become a dumpster fire. The "XRP Army"—a group of thousands of online devotees—had discovered the column and taken issue with certain elements of it, informing me I was ignorant, would never become rich, and so on. I wasn't surprised as this sort of stuff is par for the course in the world of crypto, and nor was it a big deal, especially as I long ago learned to make liberal use of Twitter's "block" button. Still, it made me wonder what drives these people.
