Ripple’s chief executive Brad Garlinghouse is offering his take on why PayPal is not adding XRP to the list of coins it will allow customers to buy, sell and store.
PayPal announced this week that its millions of users in the US will be able to purchase crypto assets “in the coming weeks,” with an initial plan to support Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
Garlinghouse tells Bloomberg he thinks PayPal probably made that decision because the payments giant felt safest with those assets from a regulatory perspective.
“PayPal I think has said they plan to go live with Bitcoin and Ether, and part of that goes back to the regulatory clarity. If you are a company looking at investing in or building upon a technology like XRP or like other digital assets, if there’s not regulatory clarity, then you’re likely to go with the ones that are clear.
And that’s what you’ve seen, I think, not just with PayPal but certainly others in the marketplace that say, ‘I’m going to start with Bitcoin and Ether because they have the good housekeeping seal of approval in the United States.’
In other countries, frankly like Japan, you see a much broader base where there is a level playing field and you see multiple participants achieving success in that market.”
In addition, Garlinghouse says he thinks the fact that PayPal won’t allow users to move their crypto assets to other wallets is a misstep.
“Two steps forward, one step back. Great to see a payment pioneer leaning in, but disappointing some fundamental tenets/benefits of crypto are spurned. I suspect PayPal is concerned about the (wait for it…) regulatory uncertainty, impacting its roll-out on a number of levels.”
Ripple has floated the idea of moving its headquarters out of the US due to what Garlinghouse sees as a “guessing game” of regulations in the US that creates an uneven playing field.
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