Bitcoin lovers' 'tribalism' is hurting the whole crypto industry and keeping regulators on the case, Ripple CEO says
- Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said bitcoin "tribalism" is inhibiting the entire crypto industry.
- Bitcoin maximalism has led to fractured representation when it comes to lobbying US lawmakers, he said.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse believes "tribalism" surrounding bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has curtailed the growth of the entire $2 trillion industry, and led to "fractured representation" in front of US lawmakers.
"Polarization isn't healthy in my judgement," Garlinghouse told CNBC last week at the Paris Blockchain Week Summit.
He shared that he owns bitcoin and ether among some other cryptocurrencies, saying he's an "absolute believer" that the industry will continue to thrive. "All boats can rise," he added, suggesting that he doesn't believe only leading cryptocurrency bitcoin will succeed over time.
Bitcoin "maximalists" view the coin as the one digital currency that rules all others. The maximalist viewpoint, in the case of cryptocurrencies, is that one asset presents an outsized reward compared to others.
Garlinghouse, who was previously an executive at Yahoo, drew a parallel between the present-day crypto industry and the dot-com era of the late 1990s, to show how multiple businesses thrived in the same industry.
"Yahoo could be successful and so could eBay. They're solving different problems," he said. "There's different use cases and different audiences and different markets. I think a lot of those parallels exist today."
Nearly 19,000 cryptocurrencies exist today, with a combined crypto market value of about $1.9 trillion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin is the most valuable, with a market cap of $789 billion as of Wednesday.
Garlinghouse's belief seems to indicate that bitcoin maximalists might make money from their trust in just one cryptocurrency, but would miss out on the thousands of other assets that have also been created to capture value.
Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor are among the most prominent bitcoin maximalists. They have been vocal about their support for the cryptocurrency and touted it as the only digital asset that will be significant in the future.
Garlinghouse said such support has led to a divide in representation when it comes to calling on US lawmakers to address regulatory strategies.
President Joe Biden outlined the first-ever governmental approach to examining the potential benefits of cryptocurrencies by signing a crypto executive order in March.
The Treasury, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are among the other government agencies helping to develop cohesive policies for the digital asset sector.
"The lack of coordination in Washington DC, amongst the crypto industry, I find to be shocking," Garlinghouse said.
Ripple is a crypto payment settlement system that's best known for its XRP token. The company has been fighting with the SEC over allegedly conducting illegal sales of XRP, with Ripple arguing the token should be treated as a virtual currency rather than a security.