During a recent appearance on the "When Shift Happens" podcast, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen recalled that he aspired to create "a better version of Bitcoin" with a group of "really, really smart people."

"There was a group of really, really smart people, way smarter than I, that I got together with, and…basically they're trying to create a, a better Bitcoin if you will — so a non-government online currency, but that didn't, you know, burn a lot of electricity and was sort of faster," he said. 

The Ripple co-founder added that the Bitcoin revolution was "incredible." 

Larsen believes that the fact that Bitcoin is incredibly conservative has served it well. 

"You could argue that all kinds of things should be improved there, but the fundamental is conservatism, and I think it's really important," he stressed.  

At the same time, he criticized volatile projects with a lack of stability and predictability, seemingly taking a not-so-veiled jab at competitor Stellar, which famously burned more than half of the total XLM supply in 2019. 

"Let’s burn half of this, and let’s change this, and let’s go in this direction, we’re going to do an airdrop there, we’re going to do, you know, it’s chaotic. It’s like the opposite of what any currency in the world kind of strives to be successful," he said. 

Larsen praised the XRP community, describing it as "amazing" and "incredible." At the same time, he seemingly questioned the viability of the Ethereum community. 

"They stood through the project through thick and thin just like the Bitcoin folks…Is that going to be the case with the Ethereum community? We’ll see," he added.  

The perils of going public 

During the podcast appearance, Larsen also stated that the process of going public has become "very bureaucratic" in the U.S. 

"And then you got the short sellers who are always looking to kill you," he added.     

These short-sellers could fuel misinformation in order to push the price of the stock down, Larsen warned.  

As reported by U.Today, Ripple President Monica Long previously stated that the company was not interested in going public in the near future.