Ripple Executive Says SEC Gave Bitcoin and Ethereum a Pass, but Other Crypto Assets Unwelcome in the US

Chris Larsen, the executive chairman of Ripple’s board of directors, says the US is stifling the growth of crypto assets that are not named Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH).

Speaking at the LA Blockchain Summit, the Ripple co-founder worries that the US is in danger of losing its position at the helm of the global financial system.

“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. We’ve been in this incredibly fortunate position where the US has been the steward of the global system. We’re 20% roughly of the global GDP but the dollar makes up 80% of all trades, probably even more than that.”

Both Larsen and Ripple are large holders and proponents of the crypto asset XRP. He says the US needs to recognize it’s in a tech cold war with China, with the economic giant investing trillions of dollars in the tech industry.

“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.

We all know that the financial system we have today is creaky. It’s old. It’s from the 70s. Swift and correspondent banking is not going to be the system that we’re going to be living with in the next two decades – way too slow, error-prone. It’s too closed off. It’s too expensive.

China is just itching to be the one that designs this next system. They’ve committed $1.4 trillion to a variety of technologies and blockchain is right at the top of their list.” 

Specifically, the Ripple executive says the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is failing to fan the flames of innovation in the blockchain space.

“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. 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. The message there is ‘Blockchain, digital currencies are not welcome in the US.’ You want to be in this business, you probably should be going somewhere else…

We’re going to have to change up here or we’re going to lose our leadership, stewardship of the global financial system. That would be a tragedy.” 

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