Ripple Calls on US Regulators to Treat XRP Like Bitcoin and Ethereum
Ripple’s director of regulatory relations says policy uncertainty is the only thing keeping XRP from achieving mass adoption by US banks and financial institutions.
At Fintech Week in Washington, DC, Ryan Zagone said XRP needs more clarity to move forward.
“The challenge for adoption comes back to policy. The policy uncertainty around some of the assets has limited adoption, particularly here in the US.
And I’m speaking from Ripple and XRP, because we use that asset because it’s a half a cent per payment. It’s basically free. It scales. And it’s efficient, with 1,500 transactions per second and nearly no energy burn. So we’re at a point today where there are real solutions to all of these challenges that already exist.”
According to Zagone, US regulators should treat XRP the way same way they view Bitcoin and Ethereum.
“Today, the policy certainty in the US exists for Bitcoin and Ethereum, despite the fact that those are China-controlled platforms. So activity goes to those platforms. What we need to do from a policy perspective in the US is look at places where there are uncertainty.
And one place I’m speaking directly for me here is XRP, where it looks like Bitcoin. It’s decentralized. It’s open-source. We have a small 7% of the validation power on that. Rather small on there. Giving clarity to those ones that are very similar to Bitcoin and Ethereum that have the same characteristics and should be classified the same way. And then we’re creating a level playing field across all the cryptos.
I’m not anti-Bitcoin or anti-Ethereum, by any means. I think there’s a lot of great potential and breakthrough there. But we need to have a level playing field so the market can pick which ones they want to use and not be, as today they are, hindered by regulatory uncertainty.”
The SEC says Bitcoin is not a security.
The agency has not officially classified Ethereum or XRP, although the SEC’s corporate finance director says he does not believe Ethereum is a security, and Chairman Jay Clayton says there is no need to change the traditional definition of a security.
Join us on Telegram Follow us on Twitter
