Litecoin creator Charlie Lee has revealed on social media that he sold and donated all his LTC holdings over the past few days. The announcement was meant to show he no longer has a conflict of interest in promoting the altcoin but the timing has sparked some backlash against Lee.
Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin, the most popular alternative currency to Bitcoin. He is an engineer manager at Coinbase. Prior to joining Coinbase, he spent 6 years at Google working on YouTube Mobile, Chrome OS, and the Google Play Games platform. Charlie earned a Bachelors and Masters degree in electrical engineering and computer science from M.I.T.
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Going Light on Litecoin
Founder of litecoin Charlie Lee has informed the community today that he no longer has any meaningful direct exposure to the cryptocurrency, having sold and donated all his LTC holdings in recent past days. Writing on Reddit he
explains that this was done to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest when promoting LTC as someone with so much social influence.
Lee reassures his followers that this does not mean he is quitting litecoin and will still spend all his time working on the cryptocurrency he created. Lee also explains that he will continue to benefit from the growth of litecoin – just not by holding the cryptocurrency itself.
A Question of Timing
In his announcement Lee explains that over the last year he tried to avoid making public statements on Twitter about the price of litecoin as he would always be accused of doing so to push the price up or down in order to improve his personal position in the markets. He also explains that he is now so well off that he doesn’t need to have more financial gains from holding LTC and can afford to make this move.
Unfortunately not everyone in the cryptocurrency community, which is hardly known for its civil debates at the best of times, is accepting of Lee’s rationale. His timing of the announcement, so soon after Coinbase and Gdax added Bitcoin Cash (BCH) trading, is the main source of the backlash. Lee only left Coinbase back in June where he was the Director of Engineering.u
It's a shame Charlie felt he had to do this to give in to people who's only lot in life it to bash others because they are successful. He has always seemed to stand for truth and integrity. He has dispelled rumors and given his thoughts on situations which have helped me (and I'm sure others) to make informed decsions on crypto investing.
Charlie has worked hard to move Litecoin forward technologically which is part of the reason it has been so successful. Thus he has helped propel blockchain technology in general as well.
Charlie Lee is one of the major people shaping blockchain technology and a stand up guy as well. There will always be those who criticize and accuse you of things when you are in this type of position. If you take something away from them they will find something else to hit you with. Charlie needs to ignore these people because as he said himself, he can't win.
Charlie Lee, a rockstar in blockchain with high moral standards. I wish him all the success and good fortune in the world!