Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the current state of the global economy is placing Bitcoin and the overall crypto markets in a prime position to rally.
In a recent virtual meeting published on YouTube, Garlinghouse says he expects economic stimulus measures in the US and abroad to have a negative impact on the US dollar in the future.
“I think the government stimulus now stands at about $3 trillion here in the United States alone. I expect it’s going to continue to grow and I think that, while probably necessary to prevent an even more significant macro economic calamity, it definitely is going to have an impact on the future.
It will, I believe, result in the debasement of fiat currencies. And you are seeing that in some emerging markets already, where the exchange rates have started to shift. But even here in the United States, it’s a factor.”
Garlinghouse points out the fact that Bitcoin was designed for a financial crisis – and so far it’s working well. He says the crypto movement has created digital alternatives to gold, and he believes the crypto markets as a whole will benefit from the global economic crisis, just as gold itself did after the 2008 financial crisis.
“It’s important to remember that Bitcoin was born in the wake of that global financial crisis [in] 2008 and 2009.
Gold has been a safe-haven asset in lots of ways. It did drop during the beginning of the 2008 liquidity crisis, but then you saw it make a big run and I think we’re going to see a similar trajectory and a similar opportunity around the crypto market overall.”
Although Garlinghouse has long said he’s bullish on BTC as a store of value, he argues XRP’s speed and efficiency makes it a far better asset for payments. He says the San Francisco startup will continue to target the use of XRP in cross-border remittances amid a surge in demand for digital transactions.
“We are going to continue to focus on how do we use XRP as a really effective tool for payments… We clearly are seeing the lockdown shelter-in-place dynamics have a big impact on cash-first remittance companies. So if you’re unable to go to a physical store, then obviously you should expect that to go down.
But we’ve also seen significant increases in digital-first players. Various public companies have shared decreases of 30% to 40% in their cash-centric business, but we’ve seen increases of 80% to 100% in those that are digital-first, and that obviously has been very good.”
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