XRP Ledger developer Marvin Sunday, alias @MarvinSunday4 on X, is leveling serious accusations against RippleX and Ripple for allegedly failing to provide financial compensation due to participants of the XRPL Ambassadorship program, which officially concluded on December 20, 2023. Marvin’s public outcry has brought significant attention to the practices of Ripple’s community engagement strategies, raising questions about the management and fulfillment of their promises.
XRP Developer Calls Out Ripple
Sunday’s frustrations erupted on X, where he detailed his involvement and contributions to the XRP Ledger community as part of the Ambassadorship program initiated by Ripple. According to Sunday, despite completing all required tasks and projects, the promised rewards have not been disbursed, affecting him and several other students who had participated. He states, “Today makes approximately 8 months since [the Ambassadorship program ended]. We are students! Some of us used our stipends or borrowed money. We did all this in good faith that we will be rewarded for our effort but we got shit on.”
In his posts, Sunday provides various forms of evidence to support his claims, including email confirmations of his acceptance into the program, links to events he hosted, detailed pictures, and links to his projects, which were prerequisites of the program. He also describes persistent follow-ups with RippleX representatives, initially with a contact named Derrick and later with Miss Grace, who eventually left the company. The transfer back to Derrick’s management coincided with a continued delay in payments and unresolved communications.
“Me and some other ambassadors sent an email to RippleX telling them about the stuff we are going through and how we are not comfortable that we will go out on social media if it is not addressed. This was around March this year. After Derrick was changed & Miss Grace was our New correspondence. She was helpful & we got all issues resolved. I was told that they will look into events but will pay for projects first, I gladly accepted, half pay is not bad,” Sunday details.
Since then, however, Ripple has again failed to respond to Sunday. The second half of the payout is still outstanding. Therefore, the developer has no choice but to go public with his story. ““Why am I doing this to your beloveth Ripple? So I thought to myself, these guys will let the year end without paying or addressing us? New people will be scammed in the next cohort. Hell no we are going down together, they shit on me & I’ll rub the shit all over them,” he added.
In reaction to the public disclosure, a representative from Ripple dev relationship team addressed the concerns on X, suggesting that the issues raised by Sunday were partly due to a technical problem that caused the ambassador portal to go offline due to non-payment. The representative stated, “Marvin, you’re on the list to be paid. Why not just send an email back to me instead of going to RippleXDev and Social. Also, as you saw the site went down due to non-payment, not something we wanted but it happened and we had to work through the process of getting it back up.”
Despite this response, Sunday expressed dissatisfaction with the suggested private communications, pointing out that his multiple attempts to resolve the issues through recommended channels were unsuccessful. “Now you are making it seem like I didn’t complain about this severally on Discord, we even sent mail to the team but no resolution. So my last resort is to call it out here. I’m saying we are not treated well & ignored. That is not fair. I’m not sending any email again.mine,” Sunday answered.
The dispute has prompted reactions from other community members and observers, including crypto pundit @DarkhorseDNME4, questioning the ambassadorship program’s legitimacy. “The xrpl ambassadorship program? A scam put in place to get free development, free marketing and free influencing without the actual need to pay them? How is this program in Nigeria funded? Who funds this?”
Further reactions from Ripple were still pending at press time. XRP was trading at $0.60.
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com
