Ripple CEO Talks Liquidity And Regulation: Ultimately Governments Aren’t Going

[Cordillerabit]

Ripple’s Recent Rise
Ripple’s price began a skyrocketing uptrend in mid-December 2017, peaking at almost $4 per coin on Jan. 4, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Ripple’s December rise can be attributed in part to their multiple partnerships with traditional finance companies, as mentioned above.

In addition, the South Korean crypto market played an important role in bringing XRP’s market capitalization past $100 bln in early January, the first altcoin to reach such numbers.

When CoinMarketCap took major South Korean exchanges off its listings in early January 2018, XRP saw a drop of more than $20 bln in market cap.

BRAD:

The first thing I’ll say is I think it’s very hard to know exactly what drives any specific market. I think at Ripple we have continually tried to focus on solving a real problem for real customers. I think there’s obviously a lot of hype in the Blockchain space broadly and I think at the end of the day, from a long-term point of view, the value of any digital asset will be determined by its utility.

BRAD: Two thoughts.

One thing that is interesting for me at Ripple is that in some ways people viewed Ripple as the contrarian. We were from the beginning really looking at how we work with governments, how we work with banks. And I think some in the crypto community have been very much, “How do we destroy the government. How do we circumvent banks?”

I think that has differentiated us and I think ultimately governments aren’t going away. In my lifetime, I don’t think that’s happening.

I am proud to be able to call the Bank of England a paid customer of Ripple’s. We believe absolutely there should be thoughtful regulation in crypto, in Blockchain.

When we engage with customers, we are not changing the existing regulatory framework, meaning if, for example, the Bank of X has an account, you have to KYC – know your customer – you have to do the KYC check. If the Bank of X is using Ripple’s technology, you’re still doing your KYC check, you’re still doing your AML [anti-money laundering] check, you still need OFAC compliance, etc.

When we talk to regulators, we explain how what Ripple is doing is not circumventing their regulatory frameworks, and they get very comfortable very quickly like, “Oh! I get it. Ok, we get it. If it’s a better product at lower price, we’re happy about that.”

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