By
staff writer
February 21st, 2024
Charlie Lee, widely known as the founder of one of the alternative cryptocurrencies, got rid of his holdings being accused of attempts of personal enrichment.
The creator of Litecoin made an ambiguous statement today – Charlie Lee published a post on Reddit saying that he no longer owns a single LTC that’s not stored in a physical Litecoin, clarifying that he has a few of those as collectibles. Lee explained the reason for this decisive step:
“Whenever I tweet about Litecoin price or even just good or bad news, I get accused of doing it for personal benefit.”
At the moment Litecoin is the 5th largest cryptocurrency; its market cap exceeds $17 billion. On Thursday, it traded at $318. This month LTC had a pretty amazing breakthrough hitting new all-time high of $375. Charlie Lee does not disclose the amount of tokens he sold, but assures that it was not big enough to affect the market.
The founder of Litecoin has been criticized for his tweets. Lots of members of crypto community accused him of using the power of social networks for enlarging his personal wealth. Nevertheless, Lee says that he avoided buying or selling LTC after publishing his major tweets.
Still, that is the situation of “my word against his”. Lee insists that he does not enjoy this way of making money. During his recent interview on CNBC he said:
“I never like to speculate on prices because I’m always wrong. If I tell you it’s going to go up and it doesn’t, you’ll be upset.”
He also emphasized that his successful work allows him to build wealth without ownership of coins.
Even though the decision of Lee to get rid of Litecoin tokens was explained by the reluctance of being charged for personal enrichment, many people accuse Charlie of not being honest. They decided that his actions were aimed at promoting Bitcoin Cash.
In response Lee updated his Reddit post saying the following:
“I wrote the above before the recent Bcash on GDAX/Coinbase fiasco. As you can see, some people even think I’m pumping Bcash for my personal benefit. It seems like I just can’t win.”
It looks like this week is the “Get Rid of your Holdings” Week. Emil Oldenburg, co-founder of Bitcoin.com, also sold all his Bitcoins transferring to Bitcoin Cash.
These are big steps made to support the position of those very important persons in the crypto sphere. We are used to treating cryptocurrency transactions as a way of making money, but it looks like such operations tend to become gestures of public importance.
The founder of Litecoin who has no LTC – that sounds ridiculous. In theory, that allows Lee, who sold all his LTC to avoid the conflict of interests, to avoid further scandals. However, he is a significant figure of the crypto sphere, and it is highly improbable he would stay outside of conflicts for long time.