Highlights From Ripple CEO’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Session (August 2018)

On 22 August 2018, Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of Ripple, answered a wide variety of questions about the company at an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session hosted by Chief Market Strategist Cory Johnson. In this report, we highlight some of the comments made by Garlinghouse:

• It is a good thing that U.S. SEC has said Bitcoin and Ether are not securities. Also, recently, Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) said that XRP is not a security,
• The recent Bakkt announcement by ICE is a big deal; it is a good sign; and it is indicative of the maturing of the crypto industry.
• Q3 will definitely see a record number of institutions buying and holding XRP.
• With regardcto crypto custody solutions, just like with crypto exchanges, it will start with the small players, and then the big boys (the traditional custodians) will move in, perhaps working in partnership with the smaller players.
• There is so much misinformation about XRP not being decentralized. This morning’s blog post by CTO David Schwartz is “profound and powerful”. Today, there are around 150 known validators, and Ripple only manages 10 of them (i.e. around 7%). There is too much religious zealotry going on in the crypto space. 
• So far, 25 universities have agreed to participate in Ripple’s  University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI), which was announced on 4 June 2018. 
• TheSwell conference (October 1-2, 2018), which this year is being held in San Francisco, is very important because it gives our customers a chance to talk to each other. This year, former U.S. President Bill Clinton is the keynote speaker.
• It has been less than a year since xRapid was announced. We expect to officially launch it before end of 2018. As for who the target customers are, it is mainly for less efficient payment corridors (such as USA-Mexico). People sometimes criticize xRapid by saying ‘what about the volatility risk of holding XRP’ while a cross-border payment is taking place. There is very litle volatility risk since XRP is being held for just a few seconds, and this risk is less than the risk of holding fiat currency for a few days.

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