Ripple CEO Hits Out at Bitcoin Maximalists
Categories: Bitcoin US
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has said that bitcoin “tribalism”, or what he calls bitcoin maximalism, is inhibiting the entire cryptocurrency industry and has led to “fractured representation” when it comes to lobbying US lawmakers.
Bitcoin Maximalism Stifling Industry Growth
In an interview with CNBC, Garlinghouse said he owns multiple cryptocurrencies and expects them all to rise together as the overall industry grows.While speaking out about his concerns, Garlinghouse compared the crypto market to the rise of the internet giants decades ago, saying: “Yahoo could be successful and so could eBay … They’re solving different problems … There [are] different use cases and different audiences and different markets. I think a lot of those parallels exist today.”
What Garlinghouse calls “bitcoin maximalists” refers to people who view one coin – in this case, bitcoin – as the currency that rules all others. According to this point of view, in the case of cryptocurrencies, it is that one asset that presents an outsized reward compared to others, causing what Garlinghouse calls “fractured representation”.
Ripple is still dealing with a lawsuit brought on by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly issuing XRP, Ripple’s native coin, as an unregistered security. In February, some good news regarding the suit allowed XRP to soar 50 percent.