As the second or third largest cryptocurrency chain, depending on how you look at the charts, Ripple (XRP) has a lot of skin in the game when it comes to crypto regulation in the United States.
Tech news today shows that the company’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who has played a prominent role in advocacy for digital assets, has written an open letter to Congress as legislators prepared to dig into a range of technology issues this year.
The central argument advanced by the crypto exec in the letter seems to be that cryptocurrency leaders are willing to work with U.S. regulators and the central bank to come up with solutions that will make this part of the market a lot clearer.
“Many in the blockchain and digital currency industry are responsible actors,” Garlinghouse writes. “We are responsible to U.S. and international law. We are responsible to serving the greater good.”
Garlinghouse strikes a note early in the letter of praising central banks for their work in the country and recognizing the importance of national regulators:
“We don’t take for granted the vital role of central banks in issuing currencies and setting monetary policy in concert with the complex dynamics of economies around the world,” he writes.
He also characterizes some of the functionality built into today’s crypto networks and why it exists:
“Companies like ours in the United States, and others abroad, employ these innovations in partnership with regulated financial institutions to enable the world to move money across borders like it already moves information—efficiently, reliably, inexpensively. In our view, digital currencies have the opportunity to complement existing currencies like the U.S. dollar—not replace them.”
Finally, Garlinghouse also makes a compelling argument that some U.S. legislators will find attractive since there’s already quite a bit of competition going on around the world in the fintech sector when he writes that the US has the chance to “lead the way in this type of innovation.”
Some note that Ripple has been trying to curry favor with regulators as the heat on Facebook Libra goes up.
“The note (letter) comes shortly before Congress is due to have another round of talks about cryptocurrencies and their place in the US. The last discussion involved raking Facebook over hot coals for its Libra project. Ripple is hoping to avoid the same fate. To do that, Garlinghouse’s letter focuses on how chummy Ripple has been with the banking sector,” writes Darryn Pollock today in a piece that ended up on Yahoo Finance in which he dissects the communication in light of recent events.
The bottom line? For “government-friendly” crypto, keep an eye on CRP.