Ripple’s regular movement of funds from its escrow wallet to a hot wallet is always noted by crypto whale watchers, such as Whale Alert, which tracks large movements of coins. Ripple conducts a transfer at the beginning of every month and usually returns a large portion of XRP back to escrow. They are authorized by smart contract to use the whole amount if necessary, but prices have been kind to them in recent years.
Here’s a tweet from Whale Alert this morning:
841 #BTC (3,265,958 USD) transferred from #Bitfinex to Unknown wallet
Tx: https://t.co/BEO1WOk6x8
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) March 1, 2019
However, their latest movement used Ripple’s “memo” feature to include a cryptic message:
“The revolution will be televised…”
Will Ripple’s Revolution Be Televised?
The note is a reference to “The revolution will not be televised,” a famous quote from a 1970s song from Gil Scott Heron.
The line from Heron’s song/poem has been referenced frequently by radical movements. The song talks about the ways that revolutionary thought had been co-opted by the mainstream media and hipsters of the day. It’s most flagrantly outlined in the following lines:
There will be no slow motion or still life of
Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a red, black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the right occasion
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and
Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant
and Women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day
Memos Becoming a Habit for Ripple
This is not the first time Ripple has included a memo in its escrow movement. Last month, they wrote “Crawl… walk… run…” as a reference to Ripple Labs CEO’s October 2017 Q&A session on Quora.
Brad Garlinghouse had said:
“[I]t’s safe to say that we have to crawl before we walk before we run. This is uncharted territory for banks and payment providers, and it’s going to take time before you see broad adoption of digital assets solving this multi-trillion dollar opportunity. Suffice it to say, we are very pleased by the interest from various pilots our customers are already running.”
This marks the fourth time Ripple has made a cryptic memo. The first time was in November, saying:
PublicServiceAnnouncement: Always avoid green eggs and ham
Then they did it again in December when they wrote:
It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.
The January withdrawal contained no memo.
Ripple’s comment that the revolution “will be televised” is cryptic at best. Are they referring to some upcoming live stream? Does Ripple view itself as an agent of change? Ripple does occasionally do live-stream question-and-answer sessions and frequently engages with social media as a means to connect with its user base. But what “revolution” are we talking about? The blockchain revolution? Which part will be televised?
Perhaps we at CCN are being dense about the poetic nature of the memo. We’d just like some clarification, please, Ripple. We also wonder what else the monthly memo could be used for.
For their part, Ripple is thriving since XRP’s listing on Coinbase. They’re holding steady above $0.32 with a daily volume of over $700 million at press time. So far, the “Coinbase effect” hasn’t defeated the recent bull momentum that XRP picked up.