Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse threw a little shade at Bitcoin recently where he stated that Bitcoin was not the “panacea” that people expected it to be.
The rise of Bitcoin has led to a vast proliferation of other cryptocurrencies. Between the major coins, there is some fierce competition as developers work to reduce transaction times and fees. San Francisco-based Ripple has their own blockchain network, but unlike other cryptocurrencies, they’re willing to work with centralized banks and other financial institutions.
Ripple Throwing Some Shade
At the recent Money 20/20 fintech conference in Amsterdam, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse talked to CNBC about several topics. He predicted that dozens of banks would be using XRP, Ripple’s native cryptocurrency, in 2019 to make cross-border payments.
Garlinghouse also brought up Bitcoin and its eventual role in the global economy. While he believes that Bitcoin will have a role, it will not become a global cryptocurrency. He said the following to CNBC:
I think it’s (bitcoin) not going to be the panacea that people once thought it would be, where it would solve all of these different kind of problems… Instead, you’re seeing specializations of different kind of ledgers, different kinds of blockchains.
The Ripple CEO explained that a primary reason for Bitcoin not becoming a global cryptocurrency is due to its transaction times. He says that the Bitcoin blockchain is “quite slow” in processing transactions. Blockchain.info notes that today’s average BTC transaction is 20 minutes. By contrast, Garlinghouse notes that the average XRP transaction is 4 seconds.
Not a Competition
Despite Garlinghouse throwing shade at Bitcoin, he says that XRP and BTC are not rivals. He notes:
Well, I don’t really think about it as one versus the other. I mean, it’s actually unfortunate, I think, that there’s some people in this, the crypto space, the blockchain space — for them, it’s almost a holy war of one versus the other. I don’t look at that at all.
In fact, Brad Garlinghouse believes that there will be “many winners” in the cryptocurrency space. He also believes that, eventually, Bitcoin will not be influencing the prices of other cryptocurrencies. He thinks this event will happen once people realize that there are key differences between various digital currencies.
As of now, Ripple (XRP) is trading at $0.67, an increase of 0.22% in the last 24 hours, and Bitcoin is trading for $7,666, a 0.1 percent increase in the last 24 hours.
Do you agree with Brad Garlinghouse that Bitcoin will not become a global currency? Let us know in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Flickr/@Steve Jurvetson.