A framed artwork posted by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse caused a wave of excitement within the XRP community earlier today.
The artwork in question shows a stencil-style depiction of a downcast chimpanzee wearing a sandwich board that reads "Laugh now, but one day XRP will power the World."
It is an adaptation of Banksy's iconic "Laugh Now But One Day We’ll Be In Charge" piece.
For whatever reasons, I’ve been hanging on to this one for a while…Prob my all time favorite from the XRP community. It’s been hanging on a wall in my house… but with all this momentum in the market, I wanted to share it!! pic.twitter.com/L7c861JEJZ
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) May 24, 2024
Monkeys are a constant motif in the works of the pseudonymous English street artist. Banksy has likely adopted them as some sort of a totem to represent a guerilla graffiti artist.
The "Laugh Now" piece first appeared as part of his "guerilla exhibition" that took place in 2000 in East London. It was then commissioned by a hip-hop club in the early 2000s. Other versions of the artwork later appeared as part of Banksy's exhibition in Los Angeles.
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The "Laugh Now" artwork represents a watershed moment in Banksy's transition from a street artist to a political activist.
The community's reaction to the cryptic artwork
Some members of the XRP community said that the artwork posted by Garlinghouse made them extremely bullish.
Vet, an operator of the XRP Ledger dUNL, suggested that Garlinghouse should put the artwork on the XRP Ledger by minting it.
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The defiant and somehow confrontational monkeys portrayed by Banksy might metaphorically represent the XRP community in its fight against the SEC.
However, there were also those who took this artwork with some skepticism, alluding to XRP's underwhelming price performance. The token is down a whopping 84% from its all-time high. Some have also noted that it was irresponsible to post such a statement for the CEO of the company embroiled in a legal battle with the SEC.
