Ripple Chair Warns US Crypto Asset Bias Will Hurt Global Finance Standing
The executive chairman of Ripple, developer of the blockchain-based XRP digital asset for global payments, said the US is unfairly stifling its growth along with other companies in the crytocurrency space.
Chris Larsen, who chairs Ripple's board of directors, recently spoke at the LA Blockchain Summit. He expressed concern that the US is falling behind in leading the global financial system and that the SEC is stifling innovation by failing to regulate digital assets and currencies outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
“I just have to say it, in the US, all things blockchain, digital currency, they start and end with the SEC… Instead of pivoting to encouraging US innovation to keep up, they’ve done the opposite," said Larsen. "They gave Bitcoin and Ethereum a pass -– proof-of-work systems that benefits China, weirdly. Everything else is still in limbo or worse, kind of being regulated through enforcement."
Larsen and Ripple are proponents of XRP, a crypto asset geared toward financial institutions. It works on the XRP Ledger, an open source, decentralized blockchain technology capable of settling transactions in three to five seconds. Customers of the RippleNet network may use XRP to source liquidity for cross-border transactions, a major asset for global banking.
Larsen believes the US is in a technology cold war with China, with the latter country investing trillions of dollars in the tech industry.
“Unfortunately, I just think the US is woefully behind in kind of stepping up to what is going to be the next generation of the global financial system," said Larsen. "That goes across the spectrum – communications, surveillance, big data, AI, but also blockchain and digital assets. The reason is because China has recognized that those technologies are the keys to who’s going to control the next-gen financial system."
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Edited by Maurice Nagle
