Lawyer Alleges That Hinman Received Money To Attack XRP Through His Ether Speech

Pro-XRP lawyer Jeremy Hogan has remarked about the recently redacted Hinman speech documents. 

The lawyer said Hinman’s speech was a deliberate attack on XRP, claiming the former SEC director received money to grant an “ETH free pass.”

Attorney Hogan’s remark follows several reactions from prominent industry players who commented amid the heated controversy generated by the recently released documents. 

Controversy Around Hinman’s Infamous Speech

The Hinman documents relate to internal considerations at the SEC, which led to the former SEC director delivering his infamous “Ether Speech.” The just-publicly released document revealed several efforts by top SEC officials to stop Hinman from giving the speech.

However, former US SEC director for corporation finance, William Hinman, bucked all warnings and delivered the speech. For instance, the SEC’s head of Trading and Markets (T&M) warned Hinman that the said speech would greatly confuse the market.

The official also noted that the speech deviated from Howey’s test factors without a law basis. However, despite these pushbacks, Hinman still delivered the speech, declaring Ethereum a non-security. 

Hinman buttressed his points by saying that Ether is not a security because it is “sufficiently decentralized.” The Hinman document also revealed that William Hinman contacted Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin while drafting his speech. 

Following these speculations, many top industry players and crypto enthusiasts queried the motivation behind Hinman’s speech.

Hogan’s XRP Remarks and Analysis of Hinman’s Speech

Attorney Deaton’s CryptoLaw hosted a live Twitter broadcast yesterday debating the Hinman email documents and the issues surrounding it.

During the podcast, former SEC lawyers Marc Fugel, John Deaton, and Jeremy Hogan extensively analyzed the Hinman issues. Hogan noted that Ripple had been cautious in discussing what motivated Hinman to give the speech to avoid accusing anyone. 

However, the attorney guessed that Ripple’s stance regarding the issue is that Hinman received a bribe from an Ethereum official to give Ether a free pass during the speech. Hogan noted that the emails suggested that Hinman was pushing to give ETH a free pass. 

Hogan said: “I speculate that Ripple is saying Bill Hinman was somehow paid, and he was paid by the Ethereum Foundation, or someone related to Ethereum to give the speech, give Ethereum a free pass.”

Hogan noted that the emails suggested that Hinman was pushing to give ETH a free pass. 

Attorney Hogan said: “We really see in these emails that right from the get-go, he even named the title of his first email as ‘the Ether speech.’ Right from the get-go, he is saying that ETH is not a security, and that was the point of him making the speech.”

Further down his analysis, Hogan said Hinman formulated specific factors to back his stance on why Ethereum is not a security, which included decentralization and the number of tokens a promoter holds.

Hogan believes these factors, which have no basis in law, were an attack on XRP and Ripple, Ethereum’s biggest rival at the time. 

He noted that at the time of Hinman’s speech, Ripple had great control of XRP Ledger validators, with over half XRP supply (500 million) in existence.